For our African craft, we built an Mbira, which is an African thumb piano.
Get a small square piece of wood as the base. Then, glue 2 Popsicle sticks side by side in the center of the square. Next, straighten out 11 bobby pins. Arrange them on top of the popsicle sticks in the pattern shown below where the ones on either end are left shorter going out a little bit more at a time until you get to the center, with the center being the longest. After that, lay down 2 more popsicle sticks over top of the others, sandwiching the bobby pins between the 2 sets. Nail the top layer of popsicle sticks to the lower level, holding the bobby pins into place. Finally, the short side of the bobby pins - bend them up to a 45 degree angle. You can cut the back end of the pins off.
Hold the square piece of wood with your fingers and play the pins with your thumbs. Ours below could have used smaller nails to really fasten the pins down by getting the nails all the way in. Instead, since our nails were a bit too large, we had to apply some more glue to hold the pins in place. It sounds decent...but do yourself a favor and listen to mbira music on YouTube which sounds great!
We made this craft as part of our Cub Scout Bear elective adventure - World of Sound.
Check out more of our World Culture Tour.
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