Search Results

In this activity, learners will explore the ways natural materials can produce sounds. Appropriate for any age, learners can make individual music or create a symphony with others.

Break open that used musical toy and squish some Play-Doh over the circuit boards, and you will hear some weird and distorted sounds the manufacturer never intended!

In this activity, learners turn an ordinary metal coat-hanger into a (very quiet) musical instrument.

In this activity, learners explore how musical instruments are engineered.

In this activity, learners explore sound by constructing tube zithers, stringed instruments from Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.

This is a simple activity for learners to create a traditional musical instrument. Pan Pipes have developed all over the world in different cultures, from South America to Greece and China.

In this activity, learners build a musical drum using a cardboard tube, plastic wrap, and beads.

In this activity, learners create a traditional Mexican noisemaker (a matraca) using cardboard, craft sticks, and a wooden dowel.

In this activity, learners explore electricity and conductivity to find that many things conduct electricity including copper, pencil lead, fruit, play-doh, and even people!

With a bit of PVC, a laser, a can/cup, and a small mirror, you can make a device that visualizes you voice or any sound transmitted into the cup/can.

In this activity, learners explore sound by constructing their very own banjo out of a coffee can. Learners experiment with the canjo to change the instrument's pitch and timbre.

In this activity, learners explore how sound travels through solid objects better than through air. Leaners attach a metal clothes hanger to a piece of string and hold it to their ears.

In this activity, learners construct wands that play different notes depending on information from light sensors programmed via a PICO Cricket.

In this activity, learners build a slide whistle using PVC pipe, bamboo skewer, and piece of foam. Construction of the instrument is relatively simple.

In this activity/demo about piezoelectricity, learners discover how some crystals produce electricity when squeezed.

This activity requires a Pico Cricket (tiny computer). Learners work on designing and building a sound sensor out of household materials, like plastic wrap and cardboard.

In this activity, learners listen to songs and decode hidden messages based on the same principle as a modem. As a final challenge, learners decode the binary messages in a music video.

Audio Boggle is an activity that lets you listen to a track (that you make yourself) and see what you can hear!

Make a cuíca (“kwee-ka”), a traditional Brazilian musical instrument that originated in Africa. Played primarily in Brazil, now you can play it at home, too, with this Exploratorium produced activity.

In this activity, learners will build an instrument from common household items. Explore sound through vibrations created by your vocal chords and captured by an instrument.