Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hello,
I am fascinated with sound and would like to explore the acoustics of a couple of buildings like the National Cathedral, Library of Congress, my apartment and so on. What type of projects can I do with sound (and microphones with recording devices)?
I have a few ideas, but I'm very limited in this field.

Some not so good ideas (?): The relation of sound (waves) and distance, studying the architecture of a building using sound, measuring changes of sound (something that makes sound would be in the middle of let's say a cathedral and mics in certain spots).
Thank you so much for reading this,
Cate L.
(Username: smile324)

First, I'd like to caution you that engineering projects tend to do poorly at Science Fairs because they are application of well known existing science and don't ususally involve scientific discovery methods.

The acoustic design of spaces meant for an audience to hear and see a speaker, theater production, choir, orchestra, etc are very different from places meant to be quiet like libraries.

You need to do some reading on acoustics and acoustical properties to be better prepared to come up with a question you are interested in that a scientific discovery method process might be applied to.

It is very hard/expensive to experiment with large things so modeling is usually involve in these kinds of studies. To validate the study, you then have to correlate it to measuring non-destructively things in the real world that you were attempting to model that can be compared with the same measurements in your model.

Thank you Craig for answering. I am brainstorming ideas on other fields as well, so I'm glad you warned me.
On the same field though: (What about a topic such as this?)
How the composition and shape of objects affect their sound patterns/waves (and vibrations), such as when a clay cup is tapped or a glass cup is taped. Can you tell the compostion of cups based on their sound signatures?

Perhaps, something related to this?

smile324 wrote:Can you tell the compostion of cups based on their sound signatures?

The resonant frequencies of any object are affected by several factors besides the material composition. The size, shape, and particularly thickness of an object have significant influence on the resonant frequencies. Unless you have identical objects except for the materials they are made out of (and any properties the materials affect like mass caused by different material density), I doubt you could determine the materials involved just based on the sounds produced.