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

Make a Speaker: A Coil, a Magnet, and Thou
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Make your own simple speaker so you can listen to your favorite radio station. Just wind a coil, attach it to a piece of cardboard or Styrofoam, hold a magnet nearby, and listen.

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.

Clap Sensor: Build a Sound Sensor Using a Pico Cricket
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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.

Canjo
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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.

Cactus Needle Phonograph
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Build a phonograph record player using a cactus needle, a record, LEGOs gear box, and a piece of paper! This activity uses a Pico Cricket to turn the motor.

Drinking Straw Oboe
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In this quick activity (page 1 of the PDF under SciGirls Activity: Music and Sound), learners will construct an oboe-like instrument from a plastic drinking straw by cutting the end to split it into t

Straw Pipes
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Learners build pan pipes out of drinking straws by cutting them to different lengths. Then, learners make music by blowing across the straws and playing some well-known songs.

Build a Band
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In this design challenge activity, learners build a four-stringed instrument that can play a tune.

Sound Automata
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In this activity, learners build their own sound machines and explore the interplay of motion and sound.

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.

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

Fun with Flatware: Little Experiments to Try at the Dinner Table
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This is a series of three quick science activities to do with a spoon, knife, and fork. In the first two activities, learners use the flatware to explore optics, mirrors, reflection, and distortion.

Vocal Visualizer
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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.

Yogurt Cup Speakers
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Learners build a simple electromagnet, then use this electromagnet to transform a yogurt container into a working speaker. They can connect their speaker to a radio and listen as it transmits 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.

How to Make an Audio Tape Bow
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From this How To slide show, you create an Audio Tape Bow that can play distorted audio sounds by running it across a tape head.

Good Vibrations
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This lesson (on pages 15-24 of PDF) explores how sound is caused by vibrating objects. It explains that we hear by feeling vibrations passing through the air.

Metal Noise Maker
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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.

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