Fun science activity for the whole family:
Make a low-tech telephone.

Here’s what you need:

• Silk thread

• Plastic cups
• Paper clips

Here’s what you do:

• Find an empty factory hall

• Attach various lengths of thread to plastic cups using the paper clips as anchors.
• Suspend threads in rows, in lengths between a few feet to fifteen meters in a web-like pattern throughout the empty factory hall, from large metal frames.
• Mic all the paper cups (which are the resonating chambers for the threads) and connect to amplifiers
• Place chairs around the edges of the hall, and scatter red futons around the floor. Sell tickets and play a concert, not by plucking the strings, but by holding them between two fingers and stroking them (don’t forget to wear thin cloth gloves, or you might end up cutting yourself!)

At least that’s what Stringraphy did last week when we went to their concert in Krems. It was really amazing. Sophisticated electronic compositions, and Michael Nyman, and The Blue Danube Waltz, played on a 50 foot wide plastic-cup-and-string-telephone-harp. Even Beta liked it.