Oakland Discovery Center

Sound automata is a modified automata mechanism designed to make a series of sounds instead of animate a scene or character. We've separated the material needed for the mechanism for the automata and the noise makers in order to make things clearer. While this a good starting place there is really no limitation on what material you can use especially on the sound making side. General materials for the automata mechanism: • A small bottle or large plastic cup • Foamcore or Cardboard • Skewers, chopsticks or 1/4'' dowel  • Straws: standard and jumbo • Popsicle sticks   Materials for making sound: • Annealed steel wire • Rubber bands, clothes pins (these make good springs if you need something to snap back) • Cups, cans and cardboard tubes (can be simply hit or have something stretched over them to make a drum, alternatively they can be cut into smaller pieces). • Bottle caps • Washers • Nails • Hot glue sticks Tools: • Scissors • Hot glu...

Tube Zither  This is our attempt to replicate a Valiha, a type of zither from Madagascar usually made using a piece of bamboo.  We pre-drilled small holes in a piece of abs pipe we had laying around and used wood screws and eye screws attach the strings just like in the canjo. We put a small pieces of wood on the point of the screws were sticking into the pipe (not visible) and used similar small blocks of wood with grooves in them to function as bridges.  The first test produced a soft but clearly audible sound, that could be adjusted by moving the bridges, tightening or loosening the strings or figuring them like a guitar.  As the tube functions as both the resonator and the neck of the instrument its a very simple and versatile.  We will try to make a more standard model employing a cardboard tube in the near future and will post instructions when we do.   Tube trumpet Some times referred to as a Hosaphone, there are hundreds of different examp...