fran
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- May 3, 2006
- Posts
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Hi all,
I went to a our yearly Young Scientists Competition last weekend - and I was pretty impressed with the level of stuff on show. OK, some of it was fairly pedestrian, but there were many really good exhibits - and all from kids in the 12-16 age group.
Anyway there were a good number to do with hearing and headphones - which is interesting given the huge number of MP3 players in use. Anyway here is a pic of just one of the exhibits -
The Damaging Effects of the Different Types of Headphones
The students made a dummy ear, and conducted a series of experiments with various music types and measured SPLs in the ear with a meter. They measured in ear, on ear, clip ons and circumaural phones with classical, pop, metal and dance music.
Maybe unsurprisingly the headphones that produced the higest SPLs were the ones that were closest to the eardrum (ie IEMS) and Dance was the music type with the highest SPLs. Classical the least.
I thought it was very good work!
Another one I saw investigated the treatment of tinnitus with low frequency soundwaves - interesting too I thought.
With brains like those coming on maybe there is hope for the world!
Comments please!
Fran
Ps:
FWIW, the winners developed and tested a quick and easy method for determining somatic cell counts (SCC) in milk - which is one of the criteria that determines milk quality and price paid by the processing companies. They found that the viscosity of milk when mixed with a certain amount of detergent was an indicator (quantitative) of SCC in milk. It was easily worth a poster at a conference, never mind a science exhibition.
I went to a our yearly Young Scientists Competition last weekend - and I was pretty impressed with the level of stuff on show. OK, some of it was fairly pedestrian, but there were many really good exhibits - and all from kids in the 12-16 age group.
Anyway there were a good number to do with hearing and headphones - which is interesting given the huge number of MP3 players in use. Anyway here is a pic of just one of the exhibits -
The Damaging Effects of the Different Types of Headphones
The students made a dummy ear, and conducted a series of experiments with various music types and measured SPLs in the ear with a meter. They measured in ear, on ear, clip ons and circumaural phones with classical, pop, metal and dance music.
Maybe unsurprisingly the headphones that produced the higest SPLs were the ones that were closest to the eardrum (ie IEMS) and Dance was the music type with the highest SPLs. Classical the least.
I thought it was very good work!
Another one I saw investigated the treatment of tinnitus with low frequency soundwaves - interesting too I thought.
With brains like those coming on maybe there is hope for the world!
Comments please!
Fran
Ps:
FWIW, the winners developed and tested a quick and easy method for determining somatic cell counts (SCC) in milk - which is one of the criteria that determines milk quality and price paid by the processing companies. They found that the viscosity of milk when mixed with a certain amount of detergent was an indicator (quantitative) of SCC in milk. It was easily worth a poster at a conference, never mind a science exhibition.