DIY Miniature Ukulele

Assembling a DIY guitar with ukulele conversion

BIG BRAIN SCIENCE
BUILD A MINIATURE DIY UKULELE FOR SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS

This is the first installment to describe our DIY kit assembly of a very tiny miniature guitar that will be converted to a ukulele for Big Brain science. This tiny instrument fits in one hand and can supplement the larger Quantum Uke, potentially reproducing a larger range of upper octave scales.

Punch-out shapes on 4 balsa wood sheets

Photos are the best guide for assembly

This "made in Taiwan" kit is in half English and half Chinese languages. Instructions are on the box and include a very general overview which is not intended to supply any significant detail or useful information for assembly.

You'll need to refer to the photos and try fitting the pieces. This is where a complicated point arises. There are several pieces that do not fit.

The insertion tabs are over-sized so these need to be trimmed and sanded. The diagram shows the punch out parts found on the four balsa wood sheets.

This section was modified

The tiny photos (use a magnifying glass for viewing the details) may be the most helpful during assembly. The enlargements presented here may be helpful. Note, the guide for string the guitar strings was abandoned as this section was originally non-functional. White wood glue, like Elmers Wood Glue, is not included. We had the Chinese translated to English and again the wording was not useful for assembly - so don't be too concerned over this. Just follow the photos.

Use extra care in punching out the parts. If any sections are difficult to remove from the surrounding balsa wood sheet, remember to use a sharp tipped hobby Exacto knife. Note the section that was modified, to provide actual string tuning pegs. These are small screws fit into glued left over wood pieces. We also substituted taught rubber bands in place of the supplied thread.

Tiny guitar conversion does not need six strings

A Uke has 4 strings and a classical guitar has six. This instrument also works with one string fingered like a violin. Replace the thread with thinner, smaller taut rubber bands. Cost for this project is $6 for the kit, $1 for the glue, plus a Mass Railway Transit fee.

Material
Dimensions
Assembly
Purchase
Instructions
Modifications
Sources
Punching
Refinements
Stringing
Frets
Resonator Chamber
Tuning
Materials

Big Brain Transport

BIG BRAIN TRANSPORT
The Big Brain in November is working on a more efficient transport system that can navigate very tiny spaces with good accuracy.

BRAIN TRANSPORT is driven by massive Lithium Ion propulsion containment, possibly the best and most affordable energy technology available for this project. This source is very light weight compared to other containment of energy and renewable. Research and design will continue on this project.

Quantum Ukulele

ESTABLISHING A QUANTUM UKULELE

Ukulele used for quantum experiments

Effects of a wave form nature can be created, duplicated, and simulated to explore the quantum world using the sound from a musical instrument.

One musical instrument is like a tiny guitar - the Ukulele, which has origins from Hawaii. They are available with four strings in various sizes (soprano, concert, tenor, baritone), generally one of the smallest sizes is called a Soprano. The Soprano Uke obtained for the Big Brain Project is 21-inches long and has a 13.5-inch bridge rating. It resonates with a mahogany wood construct, and is especially well designed for stability and a more humid environment.

The project begins with an acoustical uke and some preparations to convert it into an electronic instrument. The first step is to install a pickup to transfer the sound into an amplifier or computer (or other machine for processing. There are several ways to create an electronic pickup - some work and some will not work with gut strings. Magnetic induction pickups work with metal strings, however a piezo based pickup, which is based on acoustical vibrations, will work. Another method which is quick and simple is to place a directional quality microphone near the resonance aperture. Waves are then captured, and can be recorded, modified, and transformed. Techniques such as capture, transforming, reflecting, modulating and applying effects can have designs and introductions into the system.

String tuning is accomplished with a modern electronic tuner. This is a small electronic battery operated device with a display that shows the key note of the plucked string and the direction to tune it.

It's possible to apply and connect the QuadLyzer and introduce the study of Quantum worlds simulated with the Uke.

Music Breakthrough

MUSIC BREAK-
THROUGH
The Big Brain Project knows the value of a good tuned harmonic oscillation, instrumentally useful for numerous applications, studies, and the creation of new inventive devices.

The invention of Autotune is revolutionizing the world of singing. This technique takes a singing, or even speaking voice, and tunes it to musical notes. Singers can be in perfect pitch even if they were not during the recording.

The technique of auto tuning through electronic means has existed for decades. One example from 1998 is Cher's song "Believe."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbXiECmCZ94

Cover by Rosebud
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANwybPdLn9M

Auto Tuning techniques have value in not only in electronics and the music industry, but in other fields of science, such as mechanics and motion, optics and astronomy, thermodynamics, and quantum realities.

Songify works on the Apple iPhone as a free app. (see link)

Auto-Tune (Wikeipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-Tune

Songify App Review (Youtube)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzjBHYdIhzY

Links to the Future

LINK TO THE FUTURE
Life has changed with NASA projects. No longer are projects confined to a couple years, but rather blaze a path toward ultimate grand visions that will unfold between ten and 20 years in the future.

NASAspaceflight.com pages are spectacular with commissioned artistic visions glimpsing the glory of future space exploration. This is a prime opportunity to see the future today.

A new discovered NASA web page feed is spectacular and highly intriguing - an inspiration for anyone conducting their own space program or with interests in the future of humanity's quest toward the stars.

The web site covers current day and future projects of space with imminent time lines for new launch vehicles, explorations beyond Earth orbital space, and manned exploratory journeys to the Moon, Mars and the asteroids. It also covers projects by countries other than the USA. The easy to follow outlines bring up project pages for some of the most interesting and data useful sites. The Big Brain project is following Nasa's Space Flight web site.

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/

President Obama Space

President Obama dramatically moves beyond the Space Shuttle

PRESIDENT OBAMA SPACE
How Does Obama Space affect Big Brain Science? Exactly what has Obama done for the space program?
 
As reported in the news, USA President Obama directed NASA to work toward getting astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid by 2025, then on to the vicinity of Mars by the mid-2030s.

The agency is developing a huge rocket called the Space Launch System and a crew capsule called Orion. NASA hopes the SLS-Orion combo will begin launching astronauts by late 2021.

The Obama Administration has also encouraged NASA to hand over crew and cargo activities in low-Earth orbit (LEO) to private American companies. The aim is to fill the void left by the 2011 retirement of the space shuttle program, which was set in motion by President George W. Bush back in 2004.

NASA has doled out a total of $1.4 billion in the past two years to firms developing crewed vehicles. The agency wants at least two crewed commercial spaceships to be up and running by 2017; until then, the United States will remain dependent on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to provide this orbital taxi service.

The progress has been faster on the cargo front, with California-based SpaceX completing the first of 12 contracted supply flights to the International Space Station with its robotic Dragon capsule last month. NASA has also inked a resupply deal with Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp., which aims to launch a demonstration mission to the orbiting lab in the coming months.

Sources: NASA, FOX News, General Press

Thought Object Action Amplifier

Big Brain Discoveries in Science
AMPLIFY A THOUGHT, OBJECT OR ACTION

HOW CAN YOU AMPLIFY A THOUGHT OR AN OBJECT?
* Can you make your thoughts more powerful?
* Increase the actions of medical technology?
* Do more with the actions of a machine?
* Amplify ideas? 

Using a special technique of amplification of something to create and gain more, or gain something totally new and unexpected, is an interesting concept - useful for many purposes.
 
Normally one thinks about amplifying the volume of sound or increasing an electronic signal in signal processing. Light is also amplified for astronomical and telescopic studies of deep space objects the Universe. Are there other unexplored uses of amplification? We think YES!

Opportunities exist for amplification
Traditionally one can push a person in a swing, each time imparting more momentum energy in the push to reach a higher level. One can amplify thought, by focus and concentration, and help from a machine. One can amplify the action of a computer program by enhancements with algorithms. The transmission of light can be amplified by dialectric coatings and the state of constructive interference of light waves. One can even amplify the action of a pill.

IMPARTING MOMENTUM
For example, let's say you're in the hospital and you're given a pill to help relax you. One of two conditions could result. 1) you could take the pill and continue to fight it and remain in a state of high excitability, or 2) you could help the action of the pill by meditating and relaxing and performing actions to supplement the pill's relaxant purpose. This would boost the intended purpose and action and final result of the pill. It makes the pill far more powerful and active than if one did nothing.

RANGE OF APPS
The same amplifying action of something to gain more can hold true for many things other than a pill. It's this venue the Big Brain is exploring. It has led to some things so remarkable, and this is the reason for defining the process and noting it with this blog.

Inverted Exoskeleton

INVERTED EXOSKELETON INVENTION
Turn your machine skin inside out!!!

This documents the new invention of the Inverted Exoskeleton. Prior to this, the Big Brain employed two styles of machine hardware design, a stacked tower of boards and the Exo or Exoskeleton.

POSITIVE EXO 
The EXO is positive in nature, and has boards or component skin on the peripheral outside where wiring takes place.

TOWER
The Tower has boards stacked one of top of another. This approach is expanding linear. Wiring takes place on the top of each board.

NEGATIVE EXO
The Big Brain Project has invented the Negative Inverted Exoskeleton. The NIE has wiring and components inside the EXO configuration. It's the same as turning an Exoskeleton skin inside out.

COMPONENT PROTECTION 
The NIE is a revelation in Big Braining technology. For the first time, the inverted electronic skin will protect components using the outside, or previous underside, of the board.

DURABILITY
The board also acts as its own support, connect together at the edges with simple low cost hardware. The config is idea for more rough handling, mobility, transport and even going into space. With inertial rocket effects on the NIE payload, the wires will press against the boards which act as a supporting bed in specific conditions and orientations.

COMPONENT PLACEMENT
The NIE places components on the inside, making better use of space and footprint. The ideal NIE config places the solderless breadboard at the opening side for easy wiring access. One challenge faced by the deployment of the NIE is the serial or USB connector orientations and resultant cabling positioning. 90-degree internalized mounting of boards restrict access to connectors which were mounted along board edges.

QUADLYZER CONSIDERATIONS
A new QuadLyzer is being examined with the possibility of a new Negative Inverted Exoskeleton design. However, Parallax has a universal design of placing the connector at the board's edge. This is blocked with the NIE design. One option is a turn-out board design which increases design complexity. For now, the best design for the QuadLyzer is a positive Exoskeleton to maintain easy access to cabling and serial connectors.

Inner Space Era Expanded

BIG BRAIN EXPANDS SPACE EXPLORATION
INNER SPACE ERA EXPANDED
This is the era of grand exploration of inner space found inside a chip, notably the Parallax Propeller chip. Inner Space is a broad category and is now expanded beyond the microscopic to include mesoscopic, nanoscopic, and the quantum world.

OK, so you think you're a little bored with this topic? Think again. We believe it's possible to create a tiny door opening to another dimension of the Quantum world and peer inside to see back to the temporal edge of our Universe, at the beginning of relativistic space and time. See New Theory of the Universe:
http://humanoidolabs.blogspot.tw/2012/10/new-universe-theory.html

INNER SPACE
Era of Inner Space
Inner Space Program
Machining
Objects Inside the Chip
ERA

MESOSCOPIC SPACE
There is no rigid definition for mesoscopic physics, but the systems studied are normally in the range of 100 nm (the size of a typical virus) to 1 000 nm (the size of a typical bacterium). 100 nanometers is the approximate upper limit for a nanoparticle. (Mesoscopic Space does not yet appear on the Big Brain Space Exploration Chart, although space exploration overlaps this region.)

MICROSCOPIC SPACE
Thus far, the Big Brain projects and programs have studied the microscopic, created a powerful microscope, explored the inside Cog City of a Propeller chip, and viewed things at the molecular level.

Microbots
Molecular Stage Cascader
GMM Genius Molecular Microscope Diagram 
Powerful Microscopes 
Genius Molecular Microscope GMM
Molecular Microscopy Initiative
City in a Propeller Chip

NANOSCOPIC SPACE
The Big Brain created several nanotechnology machines for existence inside a Parallax Propeller chip.

Propeller Nano Pulsar 
Nanoscale & Beyond 
Nano Goop
Propeller Chip Nanotechnology 

QUANTUM SPACE
The Big Brain's Quantum Space Program began with a new theory of the Universe and how the Big Bang's prior states are connected to the quantum world which are related to the doors that exist to the quantum dimensions.

Quadlyzer Quantum Analyzer 
New Universe Theory
Quantum Space 

Quantum Space

BIG PROPELLER-CHIP BRAIN SPACE EXPLORATION
BIG BRAIN CREATES QUANTUM WORLDS DIVISION FOR STUDY OF QUANTUM  SPACE

The Big Brain has formed the Quantum Space Division, i.e. The Quantum Worlds Exploration Division, which will explore strange new worlds that exist beyond the microscopic space end of the size spectrum. The project will explore perplexing "quantum world things" that traverse past the increasingly small realm of nanotechnology, and zoom deep down within the embedded and perhaps limitless infinitely shrinking zonal space of the ultimately weird and not-understood Quantum Effects.

According to research sources, i.e. Quantum Reflection

The purpose is to create a platform for exploring the phenomenon of quantum reflection, taking and applying Quantum Reflection to a level incorporating added dimensional Quanta and to theoretically represent their predicted or simulated behaviors and effects. 

TOOLS
Even when dealing with the theoretical, special research tools are required for experimentation, simulation and investigation of various scientific principles. For this reason, the QuadLyzer was invented and built.

Quantum Reflection
university.iosonofabio.fastmail.fm/talks/Quantum_Reflection.pdf

Quantum reflection is a classically counter intuitive phenomenon whereby the motion of particles is reverted "against the force" acting on them. This effect manifests the wave nature of particles and influences collisions of ultra-cold atoms and interaction of atoms with solid surfaces.

Quantum reflection of cold atoms from surfaces occurs on the attractive tails of long-range atom surface potentials, and takes place at mesoscopic distances on the order of a fraction of a micron.

Because of that, studies of quantum reflection are closely related to studies of the long-range atom-surface interactions and contribute to our understanding of the interface between quantum world and the macroscopic world in general.

Observation of quantum reflection has become possible thanks to recent advances in trapping and cooling atoms. Utilization of this effect has only begun and holds many exciting promises. The goal of the workshop is to present the recent results and applications of quantum reflection in the areas of atomic, molecular, optical and surface physics, and to discuss its potential for science and technology, notably for the understanding of quantum mechanics, for realization of experiments testing quantum electrodynamics and gravity, and for applications in the fields of quantum optics and nanotechnology.
Institute for Theoretical Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/itamp/

MESOSCOPIC
Mesoscopic physics is a sub-discipline of condensed matter physics which deals with materials of an intermediate length scale. The scale of such materials can be described as being between the size of a quantity of atoms (such as a molecule) and of materials measuring micrometers. The lower limit can also be defined as being the size of individual atoms. At the micrometer level are bulk materials. Mesoscopic and macroscopic objects have in common that they both contain a large number of atoms. Whereas average properties derived from its constituent materials describe macroscopic objects, as they usually obey the laws of classical mechanics, a mesoscopic object, by contrast, is affected by fluctuations around the average, and is subject to quantum mechanics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoscopic_physics

In other words, a macroscopic device, when scaled down to a meso-size, starts revealing quantum mechanical properties. For example, at the macroscopic level the conductance of a wire increases continuously with its diameter. However, at the mesoscopic level, the wire's conductance is quantized - the increases occur in discrete, or individual, whole steps. During research, mesoscopic devices are constructed, measured, and observed experimentally and theoretically in order to advance understanding of the physics of insulators, semiconductors, metals, and superconductors. The applied science of mesoscopic physics deals with the potential of building nano-devices.

SIZE OF MESOSCOPIC
There is no rigid definition for mesoscopic physics, but the systems studied are normally in the range of 100 nm (the size of a typical virus) to 1 000 nm (the size of a typical bacterium). 100 nanometers is the approximate upper limit for a nanoparticle.

From Discussion
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=560069
Quantum mechanics basically takes the wave mechanics of classical physics and applies it to individual particles. There are a few differences that crop up when you do this, but I think the main concept here carries over pretty well-- the concept of interference. In classical wave mechanics, we have Huygens' principle, which says that every part of a wave acts like sources for how the wave evolves forward in time. Also, we have the "superposition principle", which says that every solution to the wave equation that comes from one source just adds up with the solutions that come from all other sources. This means in classical waves, the waves get a high total amplitude wherever there is constructive interference, and low total amplitude wherever there is destructive interference.

SUPERPOSITION PRICIPLE

In quantum mechanics, we also have a superposition principle, except now it applies to individual particles. It basically says that anything that we can describe as something that can happen to an individual particle can happen in superposition, so what 'actually happens" is a kind of constructive sum over all these "possible happenings." This is the spirit of the Feynman path integral approach, for example. So using this mathematics, what has a high probability of happening is what receives constructive interference over this sum, and what has low probability is what destructively interferes. This is a key point-- each individual term in the sum starts out equally likely, even ones that correspond to absurd behavior, but the absurd behaviors cancel each other out, sort of like monkeys voting in an election.

In the case of reflection, we find that the presence of the mirror allows a certain behavior to receive constructive interference, which would not if the mirror were not there. The new behavior is "angle of incidence equals angle of reflection", and the mathematical property of that type of solution is that it exhibits "stationary phase." Stationary phase means the phase of the type of process (so how quickly the amplitude of the process varies over the set of very similar processes) is not varying over the physically allowed process, but does vary rapidly as soon as you test a non-physical process. Thus, the "angle of incidence equals angle of reflection" gives an extremum in the phase as you vary over a range of possible processes-- in this case, it is the minimum time to get between specified points A and B. Without the mirror, the only minimum time is the straight line between them. With the mirror, a second possibility emerges, the local minimum in time that comes from an equal angle of incidence and angle of reflection path between A and B that glances off the mirror. (It takes more time than the straight shot, but less time than all its neighboring paths, so it exhibits stationary phase and so constructive interference when you add the neighboring amplitudes.)

This still doesn't answer what the mirror is doing that allows for this new stationary phase solution. The classical answer to that is that the mirror acts like a source of waves that cancel the incident wave within the mirror, and constructively interfere to make a reflected wave. Quantum mechanically, the mirror creates a boundary condition on the photon wave function that forces the wave function to go to zero at the surface of the mirror, and this constraint suffices to give the reflected wave when you apply the superposition of wave functions analyzed in terms of all the modes that obey that constraint and have the energy of the incident wave. You could even do it with quantum field theory, and one way to picture that would be to say that the incident photon is destroyed by the mirror, but its energy must be accounted for, and since the mirror is elastic, it must use the energy to promote a "virtual photon" to the status of a real photon. What's more, the virtual photon not only has to have the energy of the original photon, it must also have a wave function that resonates constructively with the original photon-- in other words, it is indistinguishable from the original photon, so is ruled by the same wave function, and that wave function must experience constructive interferece (for all the above reasons) to have a reasonable probability of actually happening.

So you may be surprised to find there is not just one answer to your question, and there might be new possible answers in a few more centuries, but the key idea is constructive interference set up by the way the mirror is required to prevent the photon from crossing its flat surface, yet energy is also required to be conserved. Generally, we're happy if we have one way to think about it that gives good results and seems simple enough for us to understand.

Quantum mechanical tunneling and reflection simulation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cV2fkDscwvY

What is Quantum Tunneling?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=fvwp&v=cTodS8hkSDg

More Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_reflection

Quantum Reflection from an Atomic Mirror
george.ph.utexas.edu/papers/reflection_atomic_mirror.pdf

Counter-Intuitive the Laws of Quantum Physics
Researchers at the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin report on the observation of a text-book quantum effect that nicely reveals how counter-intuitive the laws of quantum physics can be. Considering only classical mechanics, a particle moving towards a cliff would, inevitably, fall over (and down) the cliff wall, simply because the force is acting in this direction. In stark contrast, the wave-particle-duality of quantum physics allows for a particle (e.g., an atom or molecule) to bounce back from the edge of the cliff unscathed. This is known as quantum reflection and is responsible for the observation of non-destructive reflection of the weakest bound molecule known, the helium dimer, from a reflection grating. The findings have been published in the journal Science.

http://presse.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/832?lang=enhttp://presse.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/brevia5.jpg

Artist’s view of quantum reflection of a diatomic helium molecule in front of a solid surface. The attractive force between the surface and the helium dimer (van-der-Waals force) forms a deep canyon in front of the hard wall. The helium dimer survives this impact, because the dimer actually never comes into this canyon but bounces off the edge of the cliff.

Quantum reflection of ultracold atoms from thin films, graphene and semiconductor heterostructures
http://iopscience.iop.org/1367-2630/13/8/083020/fulltext/
 http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/nick.parker/images/SOL2.jpg

BRIGHT SOLITARY MATTER WAVES:  The quantum wavefunction of a BEC satisfies a nonlinear Schrodinger equation.  Under attractive atomic interaction, self-trappedwaves of matter known as bright solitary waves can be supported.
 Sufficiency conditions for quantum reflection
http://iopscience.iop.org/0295-5075/51/4/381

http://ej.iop.org/images/0295-5075/51/4/381/Full/img26.gif