In the Singing Tubes Demonstration Kit for physical science and physics, mystify observers and create a "singing" pipe organ from an ordinary metal tube. This is a fast, easy, and excellent demonstration.
Mystify your students by creating a “singing” pipe organ from an ordinary metal tube. Fast, easy and excellent attention-grabbing demonstration to begin a sound unit, or to reinforce concepts such as standing waves, resonating frequencies, and air columns. Use a Bunsen burner to heat a metal screen hidden inside the tube. Remove the tube from the flame and the tube immediately begins to hum loudly. Tip the tube horizontally and the sound stops. How is this possible? Air vibrations, created as rapidly rising hot air flows through the tube, produce sound frequencies that resonate inside the tube-the same principle that creates a resonating tone in a pipe organ.
The Singing Tube Demonstration comes with one 17" long tube to demonstrate the “organ” principle. The Triple Singing Tubes Kit comes with three different tube lengths-19 3/", 19 1/2", and 13 1/8". Play the two longer tubes simultaneously to demonstrate the principle of a beat frequency. Play the shorter tube to produce a distinctly higher pitch to show how column length affects the resonating frequency.
Correlation to Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)