Scarsdale Middle School Students Create Musical Instruments

What’s got two doors and is filled with canned food?  A musical instrument of course! It sounds strange, but this is just one of the amazing creations that sixth graders in the Exploring Music class at Scarsdale Middle School constructed with the help of the Ototo, and their teacher Dr. Slotwinski. 

Mark McKeague, Joseph Pleass and Yuri Suzuki of Dentaku, based in London, UK, created the Ototo. The Ototo is a small device that emits a sound when its sensors are touched.  By hooking up “crocodile clip” wires to the sensors and to some conductive material, you can use your fingers to play musical notes, and eventually full-blown songs.  For more info on the Ototo, you can see the Ototo website. 

Jessica Slotwinski, who teaches Exploring Music, recognized the creative potential of the Ototo, and applied for a Scarsdale Center for Innovation grant in order to purchase 43 of the devices.  Her grant was approved, and she began a 10-week music project with her sixth grade students, to create their own musical instruments.  Since the project was so technical, requiring wiring, hot gluing, and woodworking, Dr. Slotwinski enlisted the help of the Technology teachers, Dr. Tuttle and Mr. Rambone, who helped with building the individual projects.  Accordingly, whenever technical problems arose, Dr. Slotwinski enlisted help from Computer Teacher Michael Pincus, who had originally helped her with the grant proposal. 

The grant itself is a part of the Scarsdale Center for Innovation grant programs, which focus on “research and developmental programs to foster innovative practices."  At the center of this program is the “Maker Space” movement, which is based on the idea that the future of the world lies in technology and innovation, two subjects which should be taught in school.  While this movement is relatively new, Scarsdale has been utilizing Maker Spaces for several years. Grants like the one used to fund Dr. Slotwinski’s instrument program are being used to supplement the Maker Space programs.  This particular grant was funded to create and install “A Music Maker Museum at the Middle School” which should facilitate “a STEAM ecosystem.”  STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts + Design, and Math.  STEAM is an extension of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) with an added focus on Arts and Design, as exemplified by this program. 

The Project itself was well planned for its maiden voyage as a new addition to the curriculum.  There were a few setbacks, as to be expected with new, innovative technical projects, but they proved to be very minor, and did not negatively impact the project over the long term.  A couple of these included paint that prevented the signal from traveling through the circuitry and decorations on the musical instruments that interrupted the circuits.

The students met with Dr. Slotwinski every other day, switching off with their gym class, and began by learning about other Ototo instruments through the company’s promotional videos, which can be found here.  After understanding the capabilities of the Ototo, the students began to create their own instruments.  They individually brainstormed ideas and submitted lists of potential group mates. After careful review, Dr. Slotwinski created pairs and trios of students for the project.  The new teams then brainstormed with each other, comparing their own ideas, and creating new ones, before deciding on a final idea to build.  Once approved, the groups began to build, going through trial and error troubleshooting to fix any errors and optomize designs.

To end the project, Dr. Slotwinski invited Mark McKeague from Dentaku to the school to view the final projects.  Mark flew to New York from London to review the projects, take photos and help students resolve outstanding issues. As a bonus, he asked the students and faculty in attendance to pitch him on their ideas for more Ototo add-ons.  Some ideas that came up included a removable speaker attachment to enhance the volume of the device, an inverter for sensors, the addition of even more sounds, the ability to add your own sounds to the device, and a case that can prevent drops or other malfunctions from ruining the Ototo.  The project will continue at the school as a part of the Exploring Music Curriculum.  

To nobody’s surprise, the instruments came out incredibly well.  The dedication of both Dr. Slotwinski and her sixth grade students produced some very interesting and innovative results.  Some projects are shown below: The Music Mixer, The House of Music, Musical Chess, B-Ball Madness, The Cardboard Keyboard, DJ Max, and the AT&T.