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Cuica (Laughing Cup): Make a Musical Instrument
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In this activity, you'll use a paper cup, a piece of cloth, and some string to make a musical instrument called a cuica (pronounced KWEE-kah).

Make Your Own Rainstick
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In this activity, leaners build their very own rainsticks, an instrument filled with pebbles and seeds that create sounds like falling rain. Save costs by using material found around the home.

Bee Hummer
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In this activity, learners investigate sound and vibration by making a "bee hummer"--a toy that sounds like a swarm of buzzing bees when you spin it around.

Sound Sandwich
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With a straw, two craft sticks, and some rubber bands, construct a noisemaker called a Sound Sandwich and explore how vibration produces sound.

Waterbottle Membranophone
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In this activity, you'll use a straw, a water bottle and a paper tube to make an instrument that's very much like a saxophone.

CANdemonium: Make a Drum Out of Recycled Cans
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With three cans and some tape, make a drum that you bonk down on any surface to produce a variety of sounds. This activity also teaches you about pitch, vibration, and frequency.

Coffee-Can Cuíca
Source Institutions
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.

Falling Rhythm
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Listen to the beat of gravity. By taking two strings with weights tied to them at different, yet uniform intervals, you can hear the uniformity (and rhythm) of gravity's accelerating pull.

Pipes of Pan
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Create an instrument that you don't play--you just listen to it through tubes of various lengths.

Straw Oboe: Two lips make sound
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Oboes's unique sound originates from the two small reeds a musician blows into. Make your own double reed instrument out of straw!

Modulated Coil: Hear the magnet!
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Do you have an extra portable cassette tape player hanging around?