3D Printed Screaming Spinning Tops

a few weeks ago my dad sent me this video of a wooden spinning top whistling as it's spun it instantly grabbed my attention how does something so small make so much sound for so long I had no idea how it worked but I had to have a go at designing and 3d printing my own and I got a little obsessed thanks dad the project has three main components to be designed the spinning top itself the whistling component and finally the launcher so you can get it up to speed quickly the top is a simple shape that gives me plenty of room to play with the internal geometry in order to try to make it get that whistle or scream as it spins down but how do you even design a whistle well it turns out as with many things it's a lot more complicated than you might think if you feel like going down the rabbit hole check out this Wikipedia page on the physics of whistles there are so many different geometries which can create a sound way more than I ever imagined everything you need to know can be found here but honestly I'm just a humble industrial designer who likes to make cool things so I'm going to go down the route of research prototype test refine and continue on that loop until I get the results I want these were my first prototype each has three capped holes on the side of various depths and geometries one is a straight parallel bore and the other to taper out inside to give a larger chamber with a smaller opening I also wasn't sure if they would need additional mass to spin properly because they are 3d printed plastic so I included three small pores in the top where I was going to fit m5 screws but it turns out I didn't need them and these will be important later the stems are 3d printed separately to give them a much better strength because it's stronger in that alignment and they just press fit in winding the tops on the launcher is pretty easy I just copied an old-school launcher from old photos I found online and there is ample room to get a fair few turns of nylon string onto it and just a tip be sure to use a good quality plastic string I used a nylon cord and you want to make sure the tip doesn't fray so you can actually just melt it gently and carefully using a flame and then with wet fingers just squish the tip into a point to make sure it always goes into the hole at the top of the spinning top just please don't burn yourself in these first three tests I found that when spinning really fast they all made a quite high-pitched noise but one in particular made two tones at different rotational speeds which I found very interesting three two one so encouraged I went ahead and made a huge variety of weird-looking tops with different geometries to see how they would behave unlike many woodwind instruments you can't really force air down a restricting path to increase its velocity here they're just spinning so that does limit the geometries that will work quite a bit I just want to try a lot of different ideas I had and then go with the ones that showed some potential again I'm just trying random things here I don't really know the physics of what I'm doing but it's fun to try well that batch was a for heavier some of the tops make a somewhat interesting whooshing sound but it's not really a whistle it's more of just a lot of air sounds it was at this point that I realized as much of you watching have already made the connection that the holes I didn't end up using at the top of my first spinning tops were responsible for the high pitch whistle not besides geometry although one that makes two tones I think it's the side and the top whistles making those tones and covering the top ones up with tape confirmed this hypothesis okay then back to the drawing board and time for more research to help me out on my quest to make a whistling spinning top I ordered something very special on eBay and it showed up a week later tada this is a vintage humming top a popular tin toy from the 1950s I doubt this one is actually that old but it's clearly well used and check this out with a few swift pumps of the built-in spinner it starts to generate this really unearthly tritone hum doesn't need to spin very fast at all to generate it and it looks really interesting to me is that the turns frequencies seem fairly fixed despite the decreasing velocity instead of changing pitch like I would have expected they sort of gradually just drop off a nap amplitude till they stop one by one so how does this thing generate such low loud tones for so long well it's hollow the whole inside of the top is actually forming a chamber resulting in a phenomenon known as Helmholtz resonance and it's this chamber which my first feeble attempts lacked they were just little bores and it turns out that after a little more research this approach with a chamber and little slots on the side has been used all around the world to hear a whistling sound in a spinning top it's actually a rich part of human history and there's examples from cultures all around the world using materials like dried gourds ivory and bamboo to create these same hollow geometry and quite loud whistling sound future anchors here so I've been doing more research into the humming table because I wasn't fully convinced it was operating on the Helmholtz resonance principle because I noticed that the humming it made didn't drop off in frequency as a top slowed down unlike the other spinning tops I've been playing with a test that they do operate a little bit differently and they actually have little reeds in them so I'm gonna put a really good link in the description to how these humming tops work however the spinning top I'm making does work on the Helmholtz resonance principle and as I said there's so many different ways to make whistling sounds it's absolutely crazy but anyway back to the video it's actually pretty cool thinking like a thousand years ago people were making these hollow whistling spinning tops and it must have just been almost magic to them how it made that sound I think that's really fascinating and in fact the video my dad sent me the one that kicked all of this off was of a Thai bamboo whistling top so I set out to work making my final revisions to my design based on my newly acquired knowledge this top has two rectangular slits with sharp shattered edges opening up into a hollow chamber inside the top the process of launching the top supplies so much friction to the launcher that the original pla was starting to actually wear out quite quickly so I printed a version to with actual ABS bushings and these are replaceable as they wear out because there's just so much friction in launching these so without further ado let's fire off this bad boy [Music] I am so happy with this thing I love the concept of a really old idea being revitalized and innovated on with 3d print technologies because any internal geometry is now possible it's more of a screen in this one then a whistle it's so loud and the fact it seems to have two tones it sounds at one frequency at a higher speed then lulls off and then settles into a slightly lower but just as loud frequency and then that slowly drops off as a spinning top slows down and I put it this with six perimeters to get the mass as high as possible and it really does spin for a very very long time but as I said 3d print technologies allows us to make almost any internal geometry so I have a feeling we're just getting started so I'm going to turn things over to you guys you can find the files below on the makers new store - 3d print this top and it's launcher as well as the fusion 360 and step files and a blank top so you can create your own whistling geometry and see how it goes how loud can you make it can you give it multiple tones at once is there another principle you can take advantage of in creating a whistling sound I have no idea but I would love to see what you come up with so be sure to tag me at makers News on Twitter with your results it's only through your support that I'm able to continue producing content like this without taking on mobile game sponsorships and other advertisements which I don't think anyone else wants to see and I really do appreciate it I've had an absolute blast learning or should I say relearning about these toys and I think even in our modern generation or smartphones or technology they'll still be loads of fun for kids of all ages if you enjoyed this video maybe consider subscribing to make this music so you don't miss any future projects reviews or tutorials my aim here is to empower your creativity through technology and look for seeing again very shortly catch later guys bye

Channel: Maker's Muse

Views: 1,286,312

Rating: 4.9075251 out of 5

Keywords: 3d printed spinning top, whistling spinning top, screaming spinning top, 3d printed, loudest spinning top, humming top, whistling top, diy spinning top, 3d printed toys, maker's muse, angus deveson, makersmuse, polyalchemy elixir PLA, australia, download

Id: M2c5sneDjsk

Length: 9min 30sec (570 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 14 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/DaMooseWasLoose]

I printed one of these and it doesn’t scream at all. It does; however, spin for a LONG time.

[u/The_Irish_One]

Thought I was on YouTube for a second with how often I puts this in my recommendations...