Bottle Flute/Whistle by CTKerswell

Last crawled date: 3 years ago

Make any normal screw cap bottle into a flute! (or print one of our flute bottles)
My idea came to me when thinking about the challenge... "What things make sound"
I went through multiple ideas of creating a flute or a recorder, I even though a trumpet, but all of these things have already been done.
Then I saw the bottle of wine in front of me (Empty... unfortunately) and thought of the days i'd spend blowing into the tops of my beer trying to make songs with friends.
Then I realised, they can get pretty loud.
I have researched how to change the notes (you can add liquid or make the container bigger) and I looked at the science behind the flute and thought, why not use a bottle?
Instead of all of those pesky details, simplify it and turn whatever bottle you have into a musical instrument.
This is just a theory however, currently uploaded is my first iteration of this and it is a complete test!
if I can get the angle right to make it create a sound, I can elongate the barrel and expand on it!
Bring on the fun!
EDIT--- 21st Sept---
OK, the first iteration just didnt work, it made a little noise but nowhere near what i wanted. SO, I have done a little more research and decided to try a different method... same concept, but different way to get there.
I created version two, which I just stopped, it was looking more like a bong than a flute... that's for another day.
So version 3, aptly named Bottleflute3...
I decided to try blowing down into the bottle straight with a Fipple (one of those things you see on a recorder, it looks like a slope into a neverending abyss... or into the recorder) which vibrates the air as it goes into the bottle, giving it sound...
i then have a second pipe coming out, just above the cap which will hopefully act as the musical part. The bottle itself, in theory will be an easy way to "tune" the flute, adding or taking away liquid.
let's see how this iteration goes!
EDIT---------21st Sept ---- 2
OK, its printed, it works... perfectly.
I have tried adding water to the bottle and it does change the tone! it is a tunable flute!
Next job is to add some finger holes to the exhaust to make it playable.
Now I have a choice, do I block off the exhaust and only use the Fipple for the sound or do I add screw on extras? i may try both!
EDIT---------22nd Sept----
I have tried this printed flute with a 1 Litre bottle attached. filled at varying points with water.
On this testing I have used both Sound Meter and Noise Meter on my android phone to measure the Db ratings and it is highly reliant on how hard you can blow.
I have so far measured these readings.
Empty: 108.0dB
1/4 Full: 106.2dB
1/2 Full: 111.3dB
3/4 Full: 114.7dB
Full: 113.9dB
So the highest I have achieved so far is 114.7dB upon testing with a range of 6.7dB between varying amounts of water, however I can't guarentee the same amount of air pressure.
I will try the same experiment by using compressed air and measuring the different results to see how full the bottle needs to be to get the loudest sound.
EDIT----22nd Sept ---- 2
Currently printing the fourth version, this one has the elongated exhaust which has the holes for playing tunes... if this works, I will have created a flute which uses a bottle for tuning instead of different sized pipes... which I am not sure exist, so yay... but if they do, its still a win for me as it is the first time for me designing anything like this.
My printer is failing to print in great quality... I hope I win, Prusa I3s and building it has been great, but a better printer would be amazing.
So far printing these models have not needed any support or rafts or anything, I plan to keep it like that. printability makes things a lot easier than having to get the right settings for each printer.
Using an infil of 15% it is currently taking 2 Hours and 10 mins to print while using 13701mm of filament... I am running low on white so after this, there may be a different color flute.
EDIT--------------24th Sept-------
I have now tried a few different variations of this model and I believe I am just making it too complicated.
For now I am going to leave it as a Bottle Whistle which you can tune with adding or removing water. It makes a sound all by itself too so no bottle is needed.
I am going to leave it for a week or so and come back to it with a fresh head and try turn it into an instrument.
I have just measured it on my android phone and got a whopping reading of 121dB, so simplifying it seems to be working.
Updates and pictures to come soon.
Update from December...
Unfortunately due to my printer AND computer breaking at the start of the month, I can not update this model anymore. However I feel a fully tunable whistle is still a great idea, and a bottle is printable, I am unable to confirm any more updates.
It has been fun to design and I have printed 12 of these whistles off and filled bottles to different tunings. It is rather fun to get a few people together and make some songs out of them :)
I hope I win, a new printer could replace my currently broken one.