Science Project: Make a Whirling Hummer

This project allows you to experiment with sound waves and how air movement causes sound. This is a great home school project as well as an interesting experience for anyone who wants to learn more about how sound works.

To make your whirling hummer, start with an empty cereal box. Cut out three rectangles from the cardboard the box is made of. Each rectangle should be four inches by six inches.

Stack all three rectangles on top of each other, and then use a craft knife to cut straight down through all three layers to take a smaller rectangle out of the center. After removing that rectangle, you should have a one inch frame of cardboard left. (The rectangle you took out of the middle would be two inches by four inches.)

Stretch four rubber bands across the longest direction of your cardboard frame. Line them up so that all four rubber bands cross over the hollow space in your frame but don't cross over each other.

Use a hole punch to make a hole through all three layers of cardboard in the center of one of the short edges. Tie a three-foot piece of string through the hole that you just made. On the opposite end of the string, tie a loop big enough for you to slip your fingers through, so that you won't lose your grip on it later.

For the next step, you need to go outside. Make sure you're at least ten feet from your house, any trees, or any other objects or people in your yard. Then hold tightly to one end of the string while you swing the cardboard frame around in circles. Listen as the air rushing by the rubber bands makes it begin to hum.

After you've practiced spinning fast enough and steadily enough to cause the humming sound, make changes to your whirling hummer so that you can observe how it changes the sound. Spinning it faster or slower, adding or removing rubber bands, and tucking bits of scrap cardboard under the rubber bands as spacers, are all ways to change the sound that your whirling hummer will make.

If you have enough cereal boxes to make more whirling hummers, you can adjust them until they each play a separate tone. Challenge yourself to set up the correct tones to play a simple song.

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