Music Box With Water Wheel Attachment

We are going to take a music box and create a water wheel attachment so that it can play in the rain. Place the water wheel under a place with running water and it will work.

Materials Needed:

-Music Box (The mechanical kind, with the hand crank)

-Sturdy material that you can cut to make the water wheel

-Anything that would work as an Axle (about 3-5")

-Protractor

-Compass(for making circles)

-Plastic Box

-Glue

-Marker

-Knife

First, use the compass to measure two, 6" diameter circles. These will be the sides of the water wheel. Cut the circles out and put a mark in the center for later.

The paddles for the water wheel should be about 1"x1.5" and we will need 9 of them, but a couple extra wouldn't hurt. Cut them out.

Use the protractor to make marks on the two circles. Each mark should be 40 Degrees from the last. These are where the paddles will be placed.

Grab the paddles and start gluing them long side down on one of the circles. Once the glue dries, glue the second circle on top of it.

The water wheel is good for now.

If you can add your own songs to the music box, do that. I used a song from Undertale called "His Theme". This is the song that plays when you give an umbrella to the statue.

To get the song to loop, cut the paper halfway between the vertical lines before the first note and after the last note. Start playing the song on the music box and stop about halfway through.

Tape the two ends together without having them overlap, to create a seamless loop. Try not to cover any of the notes, or they will not play.

Note: You cannot remove the song now without breaking the loop

We're going to glue the axle to the center of the crank, not on the handle. Before gluing, measure how high off the ground the axle will be, we will make a hole in the plastic box exactly that high from the bottom for the axle to pop out.

Make a mark at that height, near the middle of one side, so there is enough room for everything. Make the hole only slightly larger than the axle, so it does not move around too much.

You can make the hole using a drill, or grab a small screwdriver, heat it up, and melt a hole in the box.

Put the axle into the hole you made and glue it to the music box.

Then take the music box and glue it to the bottom of the plastic box.

Then take the water wheel from the beginning, make a hold in the center and stick the axle through it. Secure them together with glue.

This is a video showing the completed music box. I turned the water wheel with my hand so you could hear the music and not just a bunch of water, but on a rainy day, the sound of the song will just mix in with the sound of the rain, so it won't be annoying, but it will be there.

If you put it under a drain pipe and it rains a lot, it might wash away, so put a couple of rocks on top of the box so that doesn't happen. Or make the statue from Undertale. Anything works.

**The box is mostly waterproof so the music box will not get damaged, but taping the box shut is good for some extra waterproofing.