Alabama's STEM Explores is made possible by the generous support of Hudson Alpha Institute for Biotechnology.

Southern research solving the world's hardest problems.

The Holle Family Foundation, Alabama works Alabama's STEM Council.

Alabama Mathematics, Science, Technology and Engineering.

Coalition for Education.

Alabama Math, Science and Technology Initiative.

Do you see that the water is vibrating in time to the music?

It's like the water's dancing to the beats.

I wonder why that happens.

Let's find out.

Thanks for joining us on today's episode of Alabama STEM Explorers Sports, I'm Kathryn And I'm Anderson and Anderson.

I are here at Southern Research in Birmingham, Alabama.

I was just telling Kathryn about my trombone whenever I play my trombone loud or quiet it made vibrations in my water.

I don't know why.

So that's why I'm asking Kathryn Yeah, that's a great question, Anderson.

So the reason that you all those vibrations is because of sound waves.

You mean like waves in the ocean?

Well, kind of.

But sound waves are a type of mechanical wave that causes something to vibrate.

Oh, I still don't get it.

Yeah.

That's OK.

So there are different kinds of waves.

You have sound waves and you have light waves.

But the interesting thing about sound waves is that they require a medium to travel through.

A medium can be anything from a solid to a liquid to a gas.

But let me ask you this.

So the water was vibrating.

Was the table vibrating?

No.

OK. All right.

Good.

Let me have you ever stood next to a motorcycle and felt the vibrations?

Yes.

And it was very loud.

Yeah, I bet.

And so the way of that's the reason that that's happening is that a vibrating object makes the air around it vibrate.

And that is going to create sound waves that transmit through the air into our ears.

Once those waves strike our eyes, drums they cause them to vibrate bone in the middle of our ear, then transfer these vibrations of the eardrum to the fluid filled inner ear, that movement of the fluid filled inner ear causes the hair like nerve receptors to start moving All right.

And that causes electromagnetic pulse is to be generated and carried along the auditory nerve in the brain.

OK. And then the brain is going to perceive these signals as sound OK, speaking of sounds, that sounds complicated.

The human body is pretty complicated.

Oh, is it starting to make sense?

Oh, yeah, kind of.

OK, so here's the deal.

Any time we talk about sound or sound waves, you got to get one point.

And that the whole the big picture is vibration, vibration, vibration.

And the best way to investigate sound waves and vibration is with using a tuning fork.

Have you like a tuna fork?

No, not tuna it for a tuning fork.

Have you ever seen one of these before?

I don't think so.

So these are pretty neat.

They're not really that special by themselves, but they can make some beautiful chimes when when you hit it just right So some doctors use these for hearing tests.

But today we are going to investigate how sound it transmits through waves and so on.

Right here, I have my tuning fork.

And I do think that we can transfer these waves through this solid ping pong ball.

That's impossible.

Do you think?

All right, so let's give it a shot, so I'm going to hold my tuning for right up here.

All right.

Nothing is happening, right?

And the reason nothing is happening is because it's not vibrating.

So what I want you to do, Anderson is I want you to take that mallet.

Strike it pretty hard and then stick it right up next to the ping pong ball.

All right, there you go.

Perfect.

Look at that.

Oh, yes.

All right.

So those vibrations, the two times in our tuning fork are vibrating and that is causing the vibrations to travel through the ping pong ball, which is going to give it that movement.

We can do this all day long.

Check this out.

Wow.

It is guys and guys and guys who.

All right.

So this would be an example of the waves traveling through a solid.

And we can hear the waves whenever we strike it.

Do you hear that beautiful chime?

Yeah.

That is an example of it traveling through the air.

But what about water?

Do you think we can get it to travel through some water?

Maybe.

OK, so I have a little bowl of water.

I'm going to put my tuning fork in here.

Do you see anything, any waves in there?

No, no, not really.

And why do you think that is?

Because it's not vibrating.

That's right.

We haven't hit it So I'm going to let you hold this with your left hand.

You can take your tuning fork just straight on the bench right here and check it out.

See if you can see some vibrations in there.

Yes, OK. Those waves are definitely Dravo, let's try one more time here.

Are you ready?

Oh, yeah.

So are you convinced I Soundwave can definitely travel through a liquid A.N..

I can testify.

I definitely here.

Yes.

Anus, intensivists.

I hope that you are to have the baby.

So I understand now the trombone makes vibrations just like all the other things that you're talking about.

Yeah, that's exactly right.

And now, Anderson, I don't really know how to play the trombone, but I can make some pretty mean beats with just a couple of straws.

Straw.

Yeah, that's right.

And I love this experiment so much, because not only can you very easily do this thing at home, but do you have a brother or a sister?

This is a great way to annoy them.

All right.

So all you need for this experiment is a couple of straws, your teeth and a pair of scissors.

So what we're going to do is here is a straw for you.

I'm going to take this blue straw.

So the first step of this experiment is you're going to take the straw and you're just going to grind it in your teeth.

You want to flatten that tip.

Yeah, I just like that it was imperfect.

Yeah.

Mm.

OK, OK, then get a nice and flat.

OK. All right.

So now the tip of our straw is flat.

You can see that.

And now here are some scissors.

And what you want to do at this time is you just want to cut a point.

So right in the middle.

So it'll kind of make a little triangle at the end.

All right, perfect is not have to be perfect, right?

Good job.

OK, great job.

So now what we can do, you just like how you play another instrument, weird's going to blow into our song and we're going to make some beats.

You ready?

Mm hmm.

OK, well, let's try one of these smaller straws.

What color do you want?

Um, green.

Green.

All right.

Here is a green star for you.

I'm going to take a pink straw so we can do it with smaller straws.

And I am thinking that the picture of the tune will be a little bit different.

What do you think?

Maybe.

All right.

Well, the same thing Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Delicious.

All right.

Now we're going to cut our point on our smaller straw and we are going to have our own little jam band.

Are you ready?

And for these smaller towns, this is a little long.

So let's go ahead and cut.

I'll cut the end up for you to make it a little shorter.

Usually that helps.

So are you ready?

Three, two, one.

This is great, I love this.

So to me is really neat about your trombone I heard you playing earlier, is whenever you extended the trombone further, did make a higher pitcher a lower pitch, a lower pitch.

That's right.

And that is because there is more air that is vibrating inside.

And so how do you think we can change the pitch of our?

straw-bones, like trombones but straw-bones.

How do you think we can do that?

Maybe cut off a little bit.

Yeah, let's try it out.

So just take your scissors and just go.

You.

You're so much better than me.

I'm going to try my small straw right?

Oh, this is awesome.

So I hope all of you guys will make a jam band at home.

This is something you definitely want to try at home.

When I was 11 years old, I went and took my dad's old cities and I had just got my first MP3 , so I downloaded it all on the computer so I can fill up my MP3 player.

I came across a bunch of old records that I knew, you know, Pink Floyd, the Beatles, which I love, you know, all those classic records.

One in particular, Zeppelin, one came up and I really didn't know that music could be like that.

Like I had heard the music before.

But for some reason, to my 11 year old brain, I was like, oh, my goodness, I have to live in this moment.

Whatever it is, I have to be a part of this.

And so from there, I started learning how to play guitar.

I had a drum set when I was really young, bass and stuff like that.

And that really transition into me playing bass in the high school marching band.

Also being on the drums and stuff like that.

Some music just became a really big part of my life.

You know, I've always been a music lover, and that has always been my thing, right.

I moved up here to go to college over at UNA And when I wanted to go to you UNA I went to the entertainment industry business degree over, at UNA know, which is a great program.

And I want to be a guy.

I wanted to be that guy that could, you know, wine, dine smoosh have fun with everybody.

Never wanted to be an engineer because I didn't want to be that guy stuck inside of a room for 17 hours at a time.

And so, of course, once I got a little bit deeper into college, one of my friends started interning in here over at fame.

And so at first he was like, Spencer, you got to go for the And I thought you wanted to be in the music business.

I was like, all right, man, that's cool.

And I kind of brushed him off a little bit and he said, oh, man, you got to really go over there.

I was like, oh, man, I don't know.

And it wasn't long before I really just fell in love with the music production process and just wanted to be a part of it any way I possibly could be.

So engineering just kind of became my Segway into that world.

And so I started hanging out here about two and a half years before I graduated college.

So last year I was in school.

I was a full time employee here.

I had worked on Greg Alman's last album, which got nominated for a Grammy or to Don.

It was all these other producers.

You know, I was just, you know, on top of all that, I just fell in love and for lack of a better word, really just became addicted to the studio life.

Right.

And so I started my career.

And now, after I've been here for seven years, I'm the studio manager.

I'm an engineer here assigned as a songwriter here.

And for me, that really is where my passion lies, even though I make a living engineering and taking care of the studio.

Songwriting is just it's the secret to all of this, right.

I want to pull on someone's heart strings.

I either want to make them cry, laugh, love or something like that.

So that's I don't know in a nutshell why I love music.

I was always good at math.

I always loved science and all that good stuff.

As far as scientific stuff goes, I'm always thinking about physics, right?

Because water is a lot like sound, right?

It's compression waves, just like as you imagine, like if you dropped a pebble in the ocean.

Sound works the same way.

So I'm always thinking about how sound reflects around things through doors, directions of sounds.

High frequencies are more directional, low frequencies are, you know, more omnidirectional.

So most thing about that, I mean, math, truthfully, I don't know.

I just try to do quick math.

But really, the vast majority of what I do is I just deal with people.

Right.

So even though I have all these skills that have been built up in my head through all my lifetime of being interested in this kind of stuff, it's really is about taking care of people.

If you can just get yourself out of the way, take care of others and really have an ear open for them.

You're going to have that success.

You're going to have people want to come back to you and all that kind of good stuff, because it's about taking care of people.

That's honestly what all life is about, is about taking care of others, you know.

So to be able to do this, especially here, is very, very special to me.

Hello and welcome to Alabama STEM Explorers here at Alabama State University in Montgomery.

I am Keisha and I'm here with my friend Cruz.

Cruz.

Have you ever been to a football game or in a stadium where they did the wave?

I have.

Oh, let's do it.

How do they do it?

Oh, yeah.

That's what we're going to talk about today is waves.

They're all different types of waves.

And so we're going to use this little bit here to demonstrate waves.

So I want you to stretch it out and I'll hold one end of it.

Here you go.

All right, so let's see.

Can you make away just let it move up let's se if we get some waves going.

Yes.

In all those ways, I see them just like waves in the ocean.

All right, let's stop for a moment and let's just straighten our ways out.

Just show a few waves.

What is this?

Do you know what this top part right here represents?

This represents the crest Yes, that is the crest And so we're measuring wavelengths this distance from these crest to this, crest, is the wavelength.

And so we want to make sure that we understand measuring wavelengths.

And then we have amplitude.

And that's talking about how how it goes.

So we have different waves that move in different ways.

And so have you.

Do you think that waves can move to solid liquid and gases?

No.

No, they actually can.

It's a common misconception that they cannot, but waves more through solids, liquids and gases.

And so we're going to look at that a little more detail.

Let's look at this right here.

We're going to flat this up.

Let's look at our slinky here.

You want it?

And I hold the other in so long as this straight.

And we are still we don't have waves, do we?

But once we start to move it.

Look, what did we see about crest coming up and down?

Yes, so we have our ocean wave.

So you think about the particles that are in an ocean.

Well, wave well, they don't pass along in the wave.

What they flow up and down as the wave carries the energy.

Just like surfers who like to get in there, as they say.

ride the waves.

Have you ever been surfing?

I haven't.

Oh, OK. Well, that is what they do with waves.

And so we have the different types of ways that move up and down.

And they move like this, see if we want to take our slinky and move it over.

That's representing those are more smaller crests But those are still part of a wave motion.

Let's look back at this right here.

OK, see, can you get a little sound with that when you move it fast or does it change?

Do you hear anything that changes or like thinking about frequency?

You want me do it really fast.

Yes.

OK. Yeah.

Yeah, let you hear a little, yes, and so then that's when we start looking at frequency and how high the sound is, you know, when you listen to the radio.

We have frequency waves that help You listen to the radio station, you hear whateve the radio broadcaster or your favorite music We asked, have you heard the word waves before in a household item that you might have in your kitchen?

Waves, waves?

How do you warm your food up?

Microwaves.

Yeah.

So in a microwave, those are very small waves and that's where the name actually came from.

Those ways are used to heat up your food.

And if you think about it, waves have a very powerful impact on the things we use every day that you probably didn't even think about.

Right.

OK, you have any question move before we move to the next Oh, no, I'm good.

Oh, OK.

So if I were to ask you to demonstrate me crest how would you demonstrate the crest?

I would.

So the crest is the top part of the wave?

Yes.

So this would be the crest.

Yes, top heart, best good, and if it was going if it was going down.

This would be the crest Yeah, we actually call this area down here at the trough.

So that's another whole new vocabulary where we and our trough And so the and we know the waves can move very fast.

They can be very tightly moved about or they can be spaced out really far to space those out on that end.

So these are some very close waves.

And see that?

Yeah.

Where have you also seen this?

What does this remind you of the ocean, the ocean and what else?

Like if you go to the hospital and they take in, they're looking at you're monitoring something on your body.

What is it?

Monitor your your heartbeat.

Your heartbeat.

Yes, your heart rate.

They are using their different types of waves.

They call them PQR waves they're used.

In that part.

So we have ways they help us to understand different things and we interpret them.

People have careers where they study just waves in their profession.

Isn't that awesome?

Yeah.

Had you ever thought about this before?

I haven't.

I barely know anything about this.

But you I have explained a lot.

Oh, right.

So, hey, let's do the wave if we wave off.

Hey I moved here in 1996 and this is my twenty fifth year at Auburn.

So we are passionate about the profession of audiology because it's important.

It's a growing profession.

It's allied health.

And we are seeing more older people suffering from hearing loss and cognitive decline this past year than ever before So we are seeing a major explosion in audiology services now happening.

If you look into the ear with something that looks like this and otoscope and we want to make sure there's no earwax in the eardrum is moving clearly.

But we look beyond the eardrum and will test for things beyond the eardrum.

And one of the things that we want to do is see the permanent damage to the nerve.

And if they do, then they are entitled to get hearing services from hearing hearing aids.

So they need amplification.

Hearing aids are now rechargeable.

They can be like computers.

You know, they are they can we can put all kinds of fancy programs on them.

People can hear a heck of a lot better than they did in previous years, even from my own experience.

And so we have more clarity.

We have more cosmetic value, which is big.

And hearing it's people don't want to show that they're wearing hearing aids even now.

So the profession of audiology can be built into hearing science, which is a science behind hearing hearing tests, which is what we predominantly do.

And then the last two things, the hearing aid and then giving them the rehab that they need.

Audiology involves a lot of physics and sound wave motion.

So it's the emotional waves going from the speaker to the listener.

So essentially, I'm talking I'm actually moving air molecules in front of me.

And those air molecules are traveling to your ear and they're making your eardrum move.

Tiny bones move.

And finally, the nerve is getting the sensation of the sound that I just so it' basically it needs a medium to be propagated.

That medium right now is air, because the air molecules are moving from me to work to you.

But it can also be done by water.

It can also be moved by metallic substances.

So solids and liquids also can transmit sound, but air is the most efficient medium to transmit sound.

And so what we really are doing in this profession is using tones which are waves to test the hearing, figured out how much hearing loss they have and then be correct for that hearing loss with the appropriate hearing.

So we have a prescription built in according to their individual hearing, and then we tailor and tune the hearing aids according to that.

And so finally they get all those waves back.

My advice to Middle's middle school students who are interested in the STEM disciplines is please give importance to physics.

A lot of people avoid physics.

Everything that we do standing up and walking, driving, laughing, speaking, everything is physics.

Hearing is physics.

So I wish every every student, regardless of what they were going into, whether it was arts, humanities, science, they all must know physics, because everything that we do in the real world is physics.

Hi, my name is Ella, and I want to know how come soda pop fizzes?

this question makes me thirsty.

The fizz is a chemical process.

Carbon dioxide is the gas that puts the carbon into carbonated drinks like soft drinks.

Carbonation occurs when carbon dioxide dissolves in water or a water release solution.

Manufacturers inject millions of molecules of carbon dioxide into each bottle or can.

Then they seal those cans and bottles up and an open bottle of soft drink is airtight and bubble free because the high pressure forces the carbon dioxide and so the liquid around it .

Remember that gaseous carbon dioxide that was at the top of the can?

Once you open the can, it escapes.

And now the carbon is no longer under pressure.

The dissolved carbon dioxide starts coming out of a solution This forms bubbles.

Which releases the carbon dioxide in the air.

So in other words, when you open the bottle, you reduce the pressure letting the carbon dioxide invisibly take flight causing fizz.

I was in high school.

I was good at math, didn't really have a lot of direction about in the real world where I wanted to do and unique circumstances.

So that was about the time the 2008 recession kind of hit.

And I came from a lower income household.

So I was looking, you know, I don't want to do this anymore And I looked in and said, hey, all of those people are still working, the engineers and what we now call STEM all of those people were still working.

And, you know, come to find out, that's because we basically keep the lights on.

We're keeping the world running even when markets crash.

It's a needed job.

And I look at that and I said, hey, those people have job security.

They're compensated well.

And I did more research into it.

They did a lot of the troubleshooting and fixing and taking things apart and went to school for four years and found out that I really, really did like that.

And that's kind of led me to where I am today.

I really enjoy working with the people that I work with.

On top of that, in my particular role as an engineer, I do a lot of hands on troubleshooting.

So equipment is designed and then it's in service for 60 years.

And so there are times when things break and you don't replace the whole piece of equipment.

So an engineer might come in and kind of reverse engineer it figure out why, how it worked in the first place, and then why did it break.

And so a lot of times I'm the hands on help that does that.

And that's by far the most rewarding piece of what I do.

I would say there's endless opportunities in STEM.

So we live in a.

Especially if you're coming up, you know, now your middle school or high school or you're surrounded by technology and you've always been surrounded by technology.

What you don't understand is there's lots of things that go on behind the scenes to make all of that happen.

And that STEM all of it is STEM, and it's always going to be there.

So like hospitals, that's a really important part of society.

OK, will they there's engineers that make that happen.

You know, law offices and stuff like that.

All there's all forms of society that in one way or another, some STEM field touches that.

So you don't think that, hey, I need to only be a lawyer, I need to only be an engineer, I need to only do this.

There are lots of options and engineers support a lot of those core things that you don't really realize as a kid that allow you to do all that.

Thanks for watching.

Alabama's STEM Explorers.

If you missed anything or you want to watch something again, you can check out our We site at Alabama STEM Explorers dot org.

Maybe you have a question we could answer here on the show and you might grab a cool T-shirt.

Feel free to send us a video question or an email on our website.

Alabama, STEM explorers dot org Thanks again for watching.

We'll be back next week.

Alabama STEM explores is made possible by the generous support of Hudson Alpha Institute for Biotechnology, translating the power of genomics into real world results.

Southern Research Solving the world's hardest problems.

The Holle Family Foundation established to honor the legacy of Brigadier General Everett Holley and his parents, Evelyn and Fred Holley, champions of servant leadership Alabama works a network of interconnected providers.

Connecting business and industry needs to a highly skilled and trained workforce.

Alabama STEM Council dedicated to improving STEM education, career awareness and workforce development across Alabama.

Alabama Mathematics, Science, Technology and Engineering, Coalition for Education, advocating for exceptional STEM education in Alabama.

Alabama Math, Science and Technology Initiative, the Alabama Department of Education's initiative to improve math and science teaching statewide.