Federico Miyara, "Noise and Children" (6 kb)

Federico Miyara, "Questions and Answers about Noise" (12 kb)

Federico Miyara, "Sound Hygiene for Children" (10 kb)

Federico Miyara, "After-dance ringing-ears" (10 kb)

STORIES

GAMES

In this game there is no single winner as in other games. In this one all players win, on this condition: we should talk as softly as possible for ten minutes. But we should still understand each other.

After ten minutes, we shall have learned that it is possible to talk without shouting.

I invite you to write a tale that has to do with noise, and to draw a picture for it. Then, please send it to me. If I like it, I promise to put it on this page. My name is Federico Miyara, and you may post it to this address: Riobamba 245 bis, 2000 Rosario, Argentina. UP TO 130 YEARS OLD.

The "Potphone"

A "potphone" is a telephone made with two yoghurt pots and a piece of thread. Using a nail you puncture a small hole through the bottom of each pot, and then you tie a thread about ten meter (33 feet) long to the pots, as shown below:

When you stretch the thread, the arrangement becomes a "telephone". If a child speaks through one of the pots, another child will listen to him or her through the other pot. I will work better if the speaker speaks softly and well inside the pot. Otherwise his o her voice will be heard directly and not through the potphone.

¿Do you guess how it works? Your voice makes the first pot vibrate. This pot communicates its vibration to the thread, which, in turn, sets the second pot into vibration recreating sound. Sound vibrations propagate very effectively along solid stuff (like thread).

This is quite a traditional game. We might update it to allow "potconferencing", much like teleconference, by means of which three or more people may communicate with each other by phone at the same time. To do so, you may "connect" a third pot with another piece of thread tied at the middle of the first piece of thread:

The threads should be evenly streched. Otherwise the device will not work properly and someone will get "uncommunicated".

The Mask... of sound

When somebody wears a mask, he or she becomes unrecognizable. The same is true for sound. But... What are the masks for sound? Quite simply, other sounds. For this game you need a middle-sized can and some pebbles:

This is a three-part game. While one child shakes the can with the pebbles inside so as to produce loud noise, another child shall speak very softly. The third children shall try to listen to the second one. You'll see it is almost impossible. The sounds of speech are masked by the noise of the pebbles.

Situations like this one are very frequent. It is called masking. Now, please take a sheet of paper and write down all the situations you can remember in which masking takes place. At home, at the school, at the park, everywhere.