The Marvellous Musical Machine
Homemade Musical Magic
Young people are building one-of-a-kind instruments from everyday objects — think spoons, boxes, and buttons turned into sound-makers!
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Using easy-to-learn physical computing, these instruments will trigger sounds, loops, or even whole chords with a tap or a touch.
Always in Harmony
We’ll design the instruments to sound great together—no music training needed. Everything you play will blend beautifully.
Created by Neurodivergent Young People
Instruments shaped by their ideas, built with our support. Their creations, their way.
funded by
Our hope is that this approach to making music will be particularly appealing to young people with ASD and ADHD.
It will be playful and fun, thus reducing the anxiety associated with traditional musical instruments, allowing the young people greater creative freedom and self expression.
Aims
1. Build Confidence
By creating and playing their own instruments, the young people will experience a sense of accomplishment and enjoy a boost to their self-esteem.
2. Encourage Creativity
The project will allow the young people to experiment with different sounds and designs, fostering their creative thinking.
3. Promoting Collaboration
Working in small groups will help improve their social skills and ability to collaborate with peers.
4. Provide a Safe, Fun Environment
The non-traditional nature of the instruments will create a low-pressure environment where young people can explore and learn, and where making mistakes will hold no fear.
In The Marvellous Musical Machine, we will work together with neurodivergent young people to craft unique homemade musical instruments from everyday objects that trigger sounds using simple physical computing techniques. These instruments will be designed to be easy and intuitive to play, perhaps using simplified scales like the pentatonic or triggering pre-recorded musical phrases or chords. We’ll also ensure that the instruments harmonise well together, so everything sounds good no matter how they are played.
(Note: physical computing involves using small, user-friendly electronic devices, like tiny circuit boards and sensors, to create homemade interactive devices that respond to touch, light, or movement, bringing everyday objects to life in imaginative ways.)
Our hope is that this approach to making music will be particularly appealing to young people with ASD. It will be playful and fun, thus reducing the anxiety associated with traditional musical instruments, allowing the young people greater creative freedom and self expression.
In the first two terms, we will pilot the project in the Autism Spectrum Centre of Lydiard Park Academy (LPA), Swindon. We will also promote the work to other schools and youth groups to share our and our participants’ experiences and recruit two new schools for the second year.
In 2026, we will run the developed project in two other schools or youth groups that have ASC units or support young people with ASC.
During all our projects, our approach is to work collaboratively with children and young people, taking them on creative journeys, acting as their guides rather than being didactic. This way we can model things like creative openness and resilience, showing them that, rather than something to avoid, mistakes and wrong turns are essential to learning and success. In this way, we enable the young people to feel greater confidence and genuine ownership of the project.
As with all our projects we will make sure there’s regular time for reflection. Working with their teachers, we will develop ways for the students to express their feelings about the project, taking into account their needs as neurodivergent young people, making sure we understand how much they’re enjoying the project, what they’re getting from it, and where we can improve it. Throughout this process we will stay completely open and flexible, and progressively reshape the project based on their feedback and ideas.
The brains of our homemade gadgets will be Micro:Bits. These are small, programmable microcontroller boards designed to make learning coding and electronics easy and fun. Developed by the BBC for use in schools, they help students understand the basics of programming and hardware interaction.
(This will likely change and evolve in response to the participants’ experiences and ideas.)
- Hook up and code the Micro:Bits to make sounds using its built-in speaker. Have fun making noise. Build confidence in using and controlling the electronics.
- Devise fun ways to use everyday objects to trigger different notes, such as foil, fruit, or cardboard switches.
- Code the Micro:Bits to play only notes from the pentatonic scale. (This uses 5 notes, designed so that any combination will sound good.) Have fun making music in which you can never really make a mistake.
- Code the Micro:Bits to play short preset melodies. Arrange several of these contraptions together so that different short melodies can be triggered and played club DJ fashion.
- Extend the challenge by using robotics techniques so that the Micro:Bits can send out signals to make other things happen, such as press a doorbell, tap a jar with a certain amount of water in it, rattle a cup with beads in it, or pop a balloon.
- The Final Challenge.
Put all this together to create our Marvellous Musical Machine. Record videos of the young people playing the instrument. Plan some parts, but also allow for improvisation so they can go with the flow, even if mistakes happen.
Marvellous Musical Machine is completely FREE – no charges for participation during school hours or in after-school sessions.
Marvellous Musical Machine includes free CPD sessions for teachers and TAs as part of the project — covering:
- Physical computing
- Coding
- Music
We understand how busy schools are — so we make everything as simple as possible for you.
We’ll take care of:
- All parental consent forms
- Risk assessments
- Planning and delivering all sessions
- Providing any equipment needed
There’s no cost to schools, and minimal admin required on your part.
All we need is space and some deserving students.
Safeguarding is at the heart of everything we do.
- All tutors have Enhanced DBS checks (Child Workforce)
- Lead tutors are qualified teachers with Level 3 Safeguarding Training
- We follow robust safeguarding policies and procedures in line with current legislation
- Our team has experience working with children from a wide range of backgrounds and needs
Your staff are always welcome to observe or attend sessions.
You can download our full Safeguarding Policy here (PDF) for full details.
Lydiard Park Academy's Marvellous Musical Machine
For their final performance, the students at Lydiard Park Academy opted to make a video of their machine in action.
Light Theremin
One component participants wanted to create for their Marvellous Musical Machine was a light based theremin.
They experimented with inputting light level readings, processing them and outputting proportional audio frequencies.
They were delighted with the results.
Programming Chords
As part of the development work, Joshua developed a remotely triggered chord generator.
Retro Game Music (Chip Tunes)
Participants made retro games of the kind you might have found on something like a Gameboy.
Key to this was the creation of music for their games in the classic style. We used software called MakeCode Arcade, which has a really fun and accessible music creator. This was a perfect activity for our participants to indulge their musical creativity.
Here are some of their games. On mobile, use onscreen controls. On PC, use WASD or arrow keys to move. (All links open in a new tab.)
Play Tune Game by Joshua. You can shoot in this game (Mobile: A. PC: Z or SPACE.)
Play Music Pursuit by Liam.
Play Cat and Mouse by Harvey. Get MouseBox to eat the Cheese before he gets eaten by the Cat.
Play Runaway by Efan. Can you evade the enemy for 20 seconds?
Play Catch The Frog by Sebi. How many times can you catch the frog before the dreaded X gets you?
Play Song Chase by Josh.