Assembling Speakers

Objective 
Does the number of wire coils or the diameter of the wire coils effect the sound of the speaker?
Does the medium of the speakers (cardboard, aluminium, plastic, etc) effect sound of the speaker? 

Materials 
Copper Wire 
2 Neodymium magnets 
Cardboard box
Plastic Soda Bottle
Scissors 
Ipod
Earphone jack
Speaker (Amplifier)
Light bulb
Alligator clips 

We coiled the copper wires into two coils with different diameters and number of coils. One has a diameter of 2 cm 40 coils. The other has a diameter of 6cm and 75 coils. 

We then had to test the voltage/establish a control group for our experiment by using mini speaker/amplifier. We hooked up the speaker/amplifier to an IPod using the earphone jack. We then hooked up the speaker to Logger Pro. By connecting a light bulb into a circuit with the speaker by using alligator clips, we were able to see if a current was present.

The graph shows the frequency of the speakers. Note the even patterns. (Song: ‘The Reeling’ Passion Pit)We then had to test the voltage/establish a control group for our experiment by using the mini speaker/amplifier. We hooked up the speaker/amplifier to an IPod using the earphone jack. We then hooked up the speaker to Logger Pro.

 We then created our speakers. First we put two neodymium magnets on either side of the cardboard box. We then wired our wire coil to the IPod. And to amplify and solidify the sound, we also wired both to the speaker/amplifier. By holding the wire coil to the neodymium magnets, we were able to create sound!

We then used the card board box and plastic soda bottle to create our own speakers. Using the same coiled wires and magnets from above, we constructed our speakers. We placed a magnet on either side of the card board box and the coiled wire around the magnet that was on the inside of the card board box. Using the same setup with the connecting wires we hooked up our speaker to an IPod and Logger Pro.

Once we played the song, we could hear the music oscillating from the card board box and recorded the voltage and sound frequencies. We repeated the same process with the plastic soda bottle except we changed the material used to conduct the sound. We used card board, the soda bottle cap, and aluminum and recorded the different sound frequencies.

Below shows an example of different frequencies with different mediums:

Cardboard Box Speakers with Larger Coils 

Cardboard Box with Smaller Coils 

Conclusion:

By observing our data, we found that the cardboard box speaker oscillated the least, creating a lower quality sound than the plastic soda bottle. Also by observing our graphs of the plastic bottle, we found that the foil oscillated the most. This means it had the greatest amplitude. The cardboard oscillated the least, and the bottle cap oscillated somewhere in between the two. We also found that both the number and the size of the coils are essential to the quality of sound. The larger number of coils wound tighter yielded a better sound and amplitude versus loose and fewer number of coils.