Audio Tours (from The Sound of Science)

In this project you will create an actual or simulated audio tour.

Actual Tours: This is the audio accompaniment for a physical visit. Actual
tours can be for places such as a botanical garden, a power plant, or a dam.

Simulated Tours: These can be for places such as the digestive track, an active
volcano, or the moons of Saturn.


Audio Tour: Actual (See Example Below: The Physics of Baseball)

The seven steps of an actual audio tour:

1. Find a place that relates to your field-- for example: a botanical garden, a
hosptial, a room in a hospital, a museum, a factory, a lake, or park.
2. Create a narration of the salient features for someone to listen to as they walked
through it.
3. Add background information about each of the salient features
4. Add sound effects or field recording samples
5. Add interviews or quotes from other people who have experience with the
place
6. Add music at the beginning, during the pauses, the end, or during the entire
tour
7. Mix


Audio Tour: Simulated
The seven steps of a simulated audio tour:
1. Think of a place that relates to your field that you could not get to- for example:
the digestive tract, the moons of Saturn, a live volcano.
2. Create a narration of the salient features for someone to listen to as they moved
through it.
3. Add background information about each of the salient features
4. Add interviews or quotes from people with exertise or experience
5. Add sound effects when helpful
6. Add music at the beginning, during the pauses, the end, or during the entire
tour
7. Mix



The Physics of Baseball at a Baseball Field (Outline)

Listen to Final Audio Example Here
https://soundcloud.com/cs272/the-physics-of-baseball-audio


Narration Notes
Today were going to take a special tour. It will be a look at some of
the physics of baseball--lets start with a baseball field.



Music Starts

Im standing here in Memorial Park in Maplewood NJ. Im in the
baseball field 5. Lets start at home plate. You should have your
ear buds in, and Id like you to put on your physics glasses
metaphorically speaking.


Pause music
louder
Batter up. So, when you hit a ball does it matter how firm your grip
is?
Bat hitting ball
sound
Does it matter if your hands are tightly clenching the bat or if they
are loosely around the bats handle.?



According to Alan M. Nathan Professor Emeritus of Physics at
University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignIt doesnt matter.



Once bat meets ball, the grip is no longer important. When the ball
impacts the barrel of the bat, a wave is created in the bat that
moves down the axis of the bat toward the knob, reflects off the
end (or the hands, if they are there), then moves back to the barrel
again. However, the ball-bat collision is very rapid, about 1 ms or
less.


By the time the wave reflects back to the impact point on the bat,
the ball has long since gone.

So the grip is basically an afterthought once the bat hits the ball.


Pause
Now lets assume weve hit a nice line drive into left center. We run
to first base and, were going to go to second base. Its going to be


close, and we need to decide whether its better to slide head first
or feet first into second base.

Sliding into base
sound
According to David Peters, a physicist at Washington University in
St. Louis, headfirst has the edge. Your arms are lighter than legs,
which means as the body rotates, arms extend out a bit farther than
the legs. For another thing, the feet give an extra push.


Lets close the inning and put on our glove and take a run out to
center field.


Music fades to Old
Baseball Game
Theres a batter up and he gives the ball a whackright to the
centerfield wall. Of course, whats going through our mind now is
What Kind of baseball was pitched Was it the flat seamed ball
used in professional games or a raised seam ball used in college
games.
According to an October 2013 story in Baseball News, the NCAA Bat
Certification lab at Washington State and the Rawlings Research
lab have concluded a study about the drag effect of the flat-seam
ball used in pro baseball vs. the raised-seam ball used in college
baseball.

Bat hitting ball
sound
A machine shot out both types of balls at 95 mph with a spin rate of
1,400 RPM and a launch angle of 25 degreesthe conditions to
simulate a home run.

The research shows that there is a significant drag effect in raised-
seamed ballsthe ones used in college games.

And, the longer a ball travels, the greater the drag effect. The
raised-seam ball traveled an average of 367 feet, while the flat-
seam professional ball traveled an average of 387 feet. This
difference would increase the harder the ball was hit.

There are currently efforts to get the flat seemed balls in college
play to make the games more exciting with more homeruns.




Well thats our short physics of baseball tour. Its back to the
dugout.

Happy hitting.
Old Baseball Game
fades, Section of
Music


The music Billy Murray & Haydon Quartet - Take Me Out to the
Ballgame and the Broadcast of Old Time Radio Game 2 of the 1936
World Series are both from the Archive.org

Music Take Me
Out to the Ball
Game and World
Series



Notes on Citation

In the narration I provided enough information for a listener to find the information
through a Web search. I couldnt fit information about the music and broadcast in
the regular narration, so I included it at the end. Citing the sources of the
information about the physics of baseball came more natural in the text, so I didnt
feel a need to add citations at the end.

Here are links to the full sources.

Nathan, A.M. (May 2012). The role of the batters grip in the baseball-bat collision.
From The Physics of Baseball. Retrieved September 15, 2013 from
http://baseball.physics.illinois.edu/grip.html

Peters, D. as cited by Roach, J. (2013). The math and science of baseball. From
Todays Tech. Retrieved October 12, 2013 from
http://www.today.com/id/39446333/ns/today-today_tech/t/math-science-
baseball/

Baseball News (October, 2013). Flat seam balls travel faster. Retrieve October 16,
2013 from http://baseballnews.com/flat-seam-baseballs-travel-further/