First we used used a contact microphone, these pick up the vibrations of the surface they are on and won't pick up voices and other similar sounds. These are connected up to handheld audio recorders in order to collect the sounds.
Here we used a contact microphone on the metal table and a piece of string from this with a ruler hanging in the middle of this. By hitting the ruler, it sends vibrations up through the string into the contact microphone, creating a ringing sound. The same idea as a string and can phones.
I tried the contact on a variety of surfaces, firstly the table which gave a low droning sound, which when put onto walls or the floor unless disturbed or stood on, all made that similar sound. The window however created sounds that both took the sounds of the outside and inside, through the window the outside sounds of traffic bounced off the window creating an echo effect. We tired it on the tree next, hoping we could pick up the sound of the movement of birds in the tree or the wind blowing it. This wasn't the case and we didn't pick up anything.
The last we microphone we tried was a hydrophone which records under water sounds. We placed it in a cup of water, along with a contact microphone on the outside and recorded what it sounds like to blow bubbles through a straw into water, taking the contract between inside the water and the sound from the cup. It created a lower sound of bubbles being blown into water, but made an eerier sound.
Some of the sounds recorded today can be found below from my sound cloud account.
