What’s that sound? Real world observations as teaching opportunities

In our day-to-day lives, we encounter numerous interesting acoustic events that can offer a starting point for a rich learning experience. In the past, making recording and performing signal analysis took expensive equipment and expert knowledge. Now, smart phones offer a readily available measurement tool to capture interesting phenomena in the world around us. A simple phone video file can provide audio for introducing signal processing techniques as well as a motivating visual context, and readily available signal processing tools enable for the investigation of these events. Several examples of such events will be presented and discussed. These examples are used as a motivation for discussion and signal processing analysis, trying to uncover the underlying physics behind each example.