After about a week I finally completed 3 DIY instruments. I started out last week, making an ocean drum that allows the user to change what is inside to make different souds. I added channels as well to make a variation in the sound and made it harder for the larger and smaller pieces to move in the box. Later in the week, I made a family of transparent shakers. The shakers were different sizes and had different materials in them such as nuts, bolts, and tacks. Today I finished off my "percussion tubes". I started the day by lashing (very similar to weaving) the tubes which held them together and made them look really cool. I experimented for a little bit with stringing the tubes together in other ways, but decided that the lashing was the most effective. After I began to play around with different things to use as a mallet. I found little plastic circles and began testing them as mallets, but I ended up putting the circles inside of the tubes and they amplified the sounds really well. I also decided on using a spatula as the mallet. Once I was "done"  I thought about coloring the circles with markers, but when I was in the shop I found spray paint and I decided to do that instead. The percussion tubes ended up looking amazing and were no longer just an instrument, but also a piece of art. 

Today our studio was assigned the challenge of creating instruments that would eventually lead to creating bikes that had musical components. Initially, I came up with the idea of enhancing a guitar, but after talking with Adam we decided it wasn't the greatest idea, so I restarted and came up with an idea to create an ocean drum. My first design for the drum was going to be circular and use hula hoops and beads, but after watching many youtube videos I decided to make my ocean drum out of wooden box with screws,nuts,bolts and washers inside. For the rest of the day I spent time creating my model. I used the laser printer to make a box out of the foam boards, and taped it all together, placing in the different screws and nuts etc. My next task is to distinguish the different sounds using different materials to have categories for the different sound styles.