Xylophone

Use eyes and hands to count and sort the wooden bars to build this six note percussion instrument. Build manual dexterity and order memory to string it together with spacers between each bar. Number each bar from 1 to 6, use letters, or use color to code the bars. Then learn to play familiar tunes with the music book that matches the numbering system.

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Violin

Construct a two string instrument and a bow. Devise experiments to modify pitch and tone and volume. Consider the variables of materials, tension, touch and your own dexterity... all experiments measured by ear.

Experiment with water and tuning to "see" the sound.

Designed in consultation with John Miller, Yale School of Music & the New Haven Public Schools. You can see photos and videos of schools where the Yale School of Music has enhanced the EWM violin program at http://musicians.yale.edu/musicinschools/Eli_Whitney_Violin_Program1.

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Light, Images, Movement

Construct a simple 4 frame animation theatre. Learn to wire the circuits that will cause four LEDs to flash in sequence through four drawings on a transparency. The projected image will become animated.

Learn the anatomy of animation and the phenomenon of persistence of vision. With a teacher's resource guide by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts

Teachers Resource Guide

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Camera Obscura

A complete light laboratory in a box. Construct a box that captures and focuses images. Use it as a camera obscura...an artist's drawing tool. Or make it into a model of the eye. Then rearrange the elements. Direct a light source on an image inside the box to project the image into a darkened room – recreate one of Leonardo da Vinci’s greatest leaps of invention: a projector..
(embedded task materials available.)

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Robot Drum

Construct a music box. Hear the logic of Leonardo's mind at work as he invents the first modern robot, an automatic drummer whose rhythms can be reprogrammed flexibly and whose tempos adjust automatically. Invent your own cadences.

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