3B Scientific U56006 Chladni Plate, Square

Product Information

Musicians warming up on stage before performing. Image by Jiaqian AirplaneFan — Own work. Licensed under CC-BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons. We now know that sound propagates in waves through a solid, gas, or liquid medium — but we didn’t always know this. In the late 1700s, a German scientist named Ernst Chladni was the first to show that sound travels via waves by devising a way to visualize their vibrations. Chladni plates are designed to demonstrate how sound vibrations travel at different frequencies. The plate itself is covered with a fine, powdery substance, and connected to a function generator and vibration generator. When used together, these generators create oscillating sound waves at varying frequencies.

Having graduated with a major in Computer Science and minors in Physics and Mathematics, I began my teaching career at Killarney Collegiate Institute in Killarney, Manitoba in 2009. While teaching Physics there, I decided to invest in PASCO products and approached the Killarney Foundation with a proposal about funding the Physics lab with the SPARK Science Learning System and sensors. While there I also started a tremendously successful new course that gave students the ability to explore their interests in science and consisted of students completing one project a month, two of which were to be hands-on experiments, two of which were to be research based, and the final being up to the student. But basically all the weight of the rod itself and plate rests on the center of the speaker. We need a way to keep that plate centered and balanced - that is why we built a middle plate out of acrylic, to hold the rod steady and level. The transducer has been salvaged from a large hard-disk drive. It consists of a heavy electromagnet and current coil -- not unlike the magnet/voice-coil arrangement in a loudspeaker.This product can expose you to crystalline silica, which is known to the State of California to cause cancer. These patterns, especially at higher frequencies, show amazing complexity and symmetry. If one can stand the noise, it is easy to spend hours finding new patterns in the sand. The Chladni Plates Kit includes a 24 cm x 24 cm square plate, round plate, 0.8 kg of extra-fine sand, and a sand shaker. The round plate can be vibrated about its center or about an offset point to investigate both symmetric and asymmetric modes of vibration. What's Included

Make studying sound and waves more entertaining and hands-on with a Chladni PlateExperiment Kit With Plate and Vibration Generator.Thisset is ideal for visualising and observing how sound waves and vibrations travel at varying frequencies, using the patterns they create on the plate as a guide. With this experiment kit you can either choose a square or circle Chladni plate, each of which will show differing patterns. What's Included?Patterns have been seen from about 500Hz to 5000Hz. The best range to show in a class is between 2000 and 3000Hz. There are many patterns very close in frequency in this range with amazing complexity. These experiences and being part of professional development workshops with the AAPT and the Canadian Light Source (CLS) this summer has given me the opportunity to speak to many Physics educators around the world to gain new insights into how my classroom evolves. As I work to build our program, I am exploring new ideas that see students take an active role in their learning, more inter-disciplinary work with departments in our school, the development of a STEM For Girls program in our building, and organizing participation in challenges from the ESA, the Students on the Beamline program from CLS, and our local science fair. I used an old 8" subwoofer - a standard speaker may also work but you'll probably end up needing to use higher frequencies than I used.