Music to the Ears: Designing and Creating a Sound Generator

Aimed at primary level, this resource provides a cross-curricular design and technology project linked to the topic of sound. Children design and make their own simple stringed instrument, so they can make a soundtrack for a movie clip. This enables them to learn and experience properties of sound and discover more about the work of sound engineers throughout the process. In the first lesson children are challenged to compose a sound track for a movie clip using a sound box they have made themselves. They then investigate how sound travels and discover the properties of sound using a resonance box. In lesson three children design and make their own sound box to fulfil given criteria, testing and improving it continually. Finally they compose their soundtrack and perform it for each other using their sound box.

These resources were produced by The European project ENGINEER.  Twenty-six institutions from twelve countries have committed to this challenging initiative of inspiring children to choose engineering for learning and fun. These resources were produced under the funding of the 7th framework programme, as part of ENGINEER project, contract № 288989. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.