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Rotating Light
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In this activity, learners explore what happens when polarized white light passes through a sugar solution.

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.

Shake Table
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This activity guide includes instructions on how to build a "Shake Table" by mounting an eccentric mass (off center) on the shaft of a small dc motor.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Finding the Sweet Spot
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In this activity, learners will discover how to find the "sweet spots" on a baseball bat. Whenever an object is struck, it vibrates in response.

Resonant Rings
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Things that are different sizes and stiffness vibrate differently, and in this Exploratorium Science Snack, you'll see how rings of various diameters react to vibration and external forces.

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.

Wilberforce Pendulum
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In this activity, learners build a Wilberforce Pendulum, a special coupled pendulum in which energy is transferred between two modes of vibration, longitudinal ("bounce') and torsional ("twist"), on a
Musical Coathanger
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In this activity, learners turn an ordinary metal coat-hanger into a (very quiet) musical instrument.

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

Curie Point
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In this activity best suited as a demonstration, learners observe that when a piece of iron gets too hot, it loses its ability to be magnetized.