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Teacher Sun was really hesitant when I first suggested this project. In high school my physics teacher made each student make their own guitar and play a song. I figured Guan Ai elementary school student groups should be brilliant enough to make an instrument that could at least play some notes here and there. In rural China, however, musical strings are expensive, so we used rubber bands instead.

The Challenge: Build a musical instrument using 8 rubber bands to play a musical scale

Materials: Thin wood and stone blocks, cardboard, and classroom materials (pencils, rulers, pencil boxes)

Timeframe: Four class periods

The first day did not go perfectly. Though we had just finished the sound unit of the textbook, students had a tough time applying their learning toward making an instrument. Most groups simply tried using different material for their rubber bands to bounce off of. Many groups spent a great deal of time amazed at the sound of three rubber bands strum together.

But even on the first day, students made progress. Some groups used their cotton strings from Arts and Crafts class because they realized that cotton strings were less thick than rubber bands and thus made a lower pitch sound. One group tied two rubber bands together because two rubber bands meant twice as thick and thus lower pitch than one rubber band. A few students figured out that pressing down on the rubber bands while strumming caused a higher pitch.

Another group wanted to make a guitar, so they took a piece of cardboard paper and cut it into the shape of a small guitar. Not pretty, but the results were impressive. Instead of arranging the rubber bands vertically, the group wrapped the rubber bands around horizontally around the circular part of the guitar. Because of the circular shape, the rubber bands all were placed with varying tightness/length and thus varying pitches.

In the end, a design emerged that other students immediately copied and built new ideas upon. Not the clearest sounds of musical notes (after all, they’re using rubber bands!), but definitely impressive.