testing – MakerBlock

Readings so far… 07/11/2026

Here are the readings so far from 07/07/2026 to today 07/11/2026.

There will be a few momentary blips in the data because now and then I have to restart my PC for some stupid reasons. In an ideal world, I’d have a dedicated Raspberry Pi (or even a special computer) designed to specifically capture this data. But, time constraints mean that I’m doing the best I can with what I have. I ordered some AHT10 boards to connect to the Wemos W600 boards (since this board doesn’t have an analog input) I have lying around – only to discover that the Wemos W600 boards are basically abandoned/unsupported and just won’t detect anything coming out of those sensor boards. I then tried some Wemos D1 Mini boards… and no dice there either.

I think the lesson might be… Just get more of the boards that I know will work. These days, that means the Adafruit QtPy boards and the SeeedStudio XIAO ESP32 line. They’re small and at $5-$8, I’ll save WAY more time than if I was trying to get a $2 board working. I guess it could be that the sensor boards are junk – but I won’t really know until I dig into these deeper and that’s not going to happen until the weekend.

I was inspired to start testing this stuff by a local science fair put on by our local utility company. But, let’s not kid ourselves, I’m only too happy to dive into a project like this. Rather than having a bunch of wires from one single ESP32 board going to three different locations in the house, I’d like to ideally have three remote sensors that are battery operated and I could place throughout the house. In a move that may well bite me in the backside, I’m trying to use a Wemos D1 Mini for these remote sensors. I already have them lying around, can run Micropython, and can connect to the I2C / AHT10 sensors I purchased. Rather than scrapping the existing system, I’m going to see if I can build up the new system in parallel, get it running, then disconnect the old system.

While I’ve shopped around for some window screens, I haven’t actually purchased one yet. However, I still have about 2 weeks to go before the science fair, so hopefully I still have time to get this done. :)

Summer Science - Testing Effects of Window Coverings on Interior Temperatures

Loudest 3D Printed Whistle – now with 100% more science

Extremely loud and compact emergency whistle v1

I ordered a decibel meter from Amazon the other day so I could drop some science on the claims from various 3D printed whistles on Thingiverse. There are several that claim to be the loudest. Well, today, I began my quest to put these claims to rest.

The closer the decibel meter is to a sound source, the higher it registers. To eliminate some of these variables, I placed the decibel meter on a counter in front of me and a chair 24 inches in front of that. For each of the whistles I was testing I stood just behind the chair and gave the whistle three hearty puffs. The decibel meter, which was set to record and display the “max” reading, would then tell me the loudest reading for that set of three whistle toots.

Without further ado, I declare the “Extremely loud and compact emergency whistle” by Whistleblower on Thingiverse the clear winner at 121.1 decibels. Both whistles by this designer took the top two scientifically determined spots.

Name	Thingiverse ID	Mass (grams)	Price	Print Time (minutes)	Decibels	Subjective Rank
Extremely loud and compact emergency whistle [v1]	2933021	3.9	$0.12	22	121.1	1
Extremely loud and compact emergency whistle [v2]	2933021	3.7	$0.11	18	111.5	3
v29 (Over 118 db!)	1179160	13.9	$0.42	90	110.4	4
2 chamber whistle (LOUD) [w5]	2616512	8.1	$0.24	49	109.5	2
Emergency Whistle with Solidworks 2014 source	495172	1.2	$0.04	7	101.8	5
Whistle Ring Modified [v2]	2027115	1.6	$0.05	9	90.8	6

Just how loud is 121.1 decibels? ¹ Well, for starters, it’s just above the pain threshold of 120 decibels. It’s louder than:

Your iPod headphones at maximum volume
A baby crying, next to your ear
A full symphony orchestra
The subway
A sporting event
A chainsaw
A jetski
A marching band

It’s on par with:

Thunder
A shotgun
An ambulance siren
A rock concert

And, if you didn’t have earplugs, you would exceed the daily safe exposure limit for 121 decibels in 7 seconds.

There may be louder whistle on Thingiverse² and, if so, please let me know. I’ll print the model and test against the others in my arsenal.

Loudest 3D Printed Whistle

This page has several charts to help explain. [↩]
Or some other online 3D design repository [↩]

Loud 3D Printed Whistle Test, Take 2

Impatient for my decibel meter to arrive from Amazon and eager to get more feedback on the loudest 3D printed whistle, I brought the four loudest whistles to work and enlisted the help of two friends. We performed the test much the same as the last time – only this time they were on one end of a large parking lot and I had driven to the far side to blow each whistle once, then repeated them each once. Here’s the result on their subjective test:

Name	Thingiverse ID	Mass (grams)	Price	Print Time (minutes)	Rank	Decibels
Extremely loud and compact emergency whistle [v2]	2933021	3.7	$0.11	18	1	TBD
Extremely loud and compact emergency whistle [v1]	2933021	3.9	$0.12	22	2	TBD
2 chamber whistle (LOUD) [w5]	2616512	8.1	$0.24	49	3	TBD
v29 (Over 118 db!)	1179160	13.9	$0.42	90	4	TBD

Whether the¹ loudest whistle is the v1 or v2 of the “Extremely loud and compact emergency whistle,” Thingiverse user whistleblower clearly designed an amazing, quick printing, low cost whistle. It has a very high pitched piercing tone that can be downright painful to be near, let alone create. ²

As before there’s a number of different things that could be happening here. Perhaps the particular tone of this whistle travels better through open spaces (such as a parking lot) rather than through a door and down a hall (such as inside my house). I know there are some whistles that require a lot of blowing power to hit maximum volume and others which almost “choke” on too much pressure.

In two days my decibel meter will arrive and I’ll try all of these tests again and post a new table. If you think you’ve got a contender or have seen a really loud whistle on Thingiverse, let me know in the comments so I can print and test it.

Loudest 3D Printed Whistle

Subjectively [↩]
Again, I had my earplugs in for the test [↩]

Another way to perform A/B testing in WordPress

I ran across this article on how to do “split testing” also known as “A/B testing” in WordPress. Basically, this process uses a Google Website Optimizer Plugin and Google’s Analytics tools to handle all the heavy lifting. Once you create the control, test, and goal pages you would configure your Google Analytics account to look for trends in which of the two pages, the control or the test, performs better.

I’m not crazy about this method which relies on Google Analytics for two main reasons:

Most importantly, it does not appear to swap control/test content for users. Rather, it appears to simply observe which of the two concurrent pages works better. This literally requires twice the marketing effort, since you would have to publicize both links to see which works better. I prefer the ShrimpTest method which swaps out specific content in a single page. This way all of your efforts can be concentrated onto one single page.
This Google Analytics method is too complex and requires too much coordination between the website and Google. Now, I love me my analytics. I like seeing the ebb and flow of visitors, downloads, etc – and few people do it better than Google. But, with A/B testing I just want to know as quickly as possible whether A or B is better. Nothing else matters. I want that knowledge as soon as possible so that I can move on to A/B testing something else. With ShrimpTest I just need to configure the plugin, make the control and test content, and wait for a result.

I’m getting ready to launch a new product on this other website that I run. I’ve already got ShrimpTest configured and ready to roll. I cannot wait to see what happens.