Savart's Toothed Wheel

DCS Code: 3C20.40 Last Updated: March 27, 2026
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Purpose

A drill-driven set of toothed disks produces a musical scale when a wooden shim is held against each rotating disk. Students directly observe that more teeth per revolution means higher frequency and higher pitch, and that doubling the tooth count raises the pitch by one octave.

Nine toothed disks mounted on a horizontal shaft in a wooden frame with numbered positions 1-9, a blue cordless drill at the left end, and a wooden shim in front
Figure 1: Savart's wheel apparatus: nine toothed disks with increasing tooth counts mounted on a common shaft. The cordless drill spins all disks at the same rate; holding the wooden shim against each disk produces a different note.
Equipment