Constructing creativity: secondary school pupils designing and building musical instruments with Lego

Ross Purves; Nicolas Gold; Evangelos Himonides; Dan Wang

Constructing creativity: secondary school pupils designing and building musical instruments with Lego
Image credit: Ross Purves; Nicolas Gold; Evangelos Himonides; Dan Wang

Abstract:

STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) education is increasingly used to engage and motivate children. Effective STEAM education requires an integrated approach in which all aspects have equal value and importance to the task being attempted as this maximises the opportunities for students to pursue aspects of particular interest. This paper reports on a musical-instrument design activity embedded within STEAM workshops and intended to provide inter-disciplinary learning opportunities. The workshops involved secondary school pupils designing and constructing their own functional, acoustic musical instruments using LEGO®. A total of 61 pupils from six schools worked in small groups to create playable instruments, drawing on a range of building approaches that included free construction, visual prompts, and detailed instructions. The activity proved to be highly motivating for participants and offered rich opportunities for creative exploration and musical expression. Through the processes of designing, adapting, and assembling LEGO®-based acoustic instruments, pupils addressed a variety of aesthetic, structural, ergonomic, and acoustic considerations. These hands-on challenges supported reflection on problem solving strategies, design trade-offs, and the physical principles underlying sound production. The workshops culminated in collective music jam sessions with the researcher-facilitators, which enabled pupils to experience the communal musical potential of their constructions and to connect the processes of designing, building, and performing. Based on detailed analysis of a sample of 30 instruments, the paper illustrates how instrument building with LEGO® and similar �visuo-spatial constructive play objects’ can provide an engaging and educationally valuable context for creativity, collaboration, and integrated STEAM learning.