Science Square was held at the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo from the 12th August to the 13th August.
As part of Arai Lab, we exhibited our vocal tract models and the digital pattern playback system.
Vocal tract models
Vowels are created by vibrations from the vocal folds resonating in the mouth (vocal tract). We can then make sounds such as ‘a i u e o’ by manipulating the shape of our vocal tract. The vocal tract models are acoustic tubes that model after the shape of the vocal tract for the sounds ‘a i u e o’. Using an artificial buzzer sound together with the vocal tract models, we are then able to recreate these vowel sounds. (We have the following links within our site on the vocal tract models and youtube links)
Digital Pattern Playback
Spectrograms enable us to visualise different aspects of sounds. The y axis represents the frequency, and the intensity of the colour represents the amplitude of the signal. The spectrogram of a speech signal can then be re-converted back into speech sounds through digial pattern playback. more details can be found here
We had close to 150 children visiting our booth at the Science Square to learn about how the voice works.
(Updated on 2017/10/05)