Determining the Speed of Sound as a Function of Temperature Using Arduino

When sound waves are taught at the secondary level, the speed of propagation of sound is one of the most important characteristics to be analyzed. However, it is very common in textbooks that the value of sound speed in air is considered constant regardless of the experimental conditions. The great question is that since sound is a mechanical wave, its speed is influenced by the medium of propagation and also by the temperature. In most cases, the techniques reported for that goal usually make use of expensive equipment and techniques that may not be affordable and/or easy to implement in schools, which is an experimental limitation for the teachers to show this influence on their students. In this work, we present a low-cost experimental apparatus, controlled by the open source electronic platform Arduino®, with which it is possible to determine the speed of propagation of sound as a function of the temperature for a short measuring region, thus enabling the students to verify experimentally this important feature of sound waves.