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As you seem to turn your kids into geeks anyway, you could build a cheap Theremin with them and teach them to play the Startrek theme song.

http://www.instructables.com/i...
http://www.thereminworld.com/s...

Just what I always wanted to do: control a computer with a theremin. There's an app for that. Twelve or more, actually...

Invented by Russian physicist Leon Theremin in the 1920's, the Theremin is not only the predecessor of the synthesizer, it's one of the earliest electronic musical instruments and produces music in relation to the musician's hands in the air! The sound of the Theremin is as eerie as it's beautiful.

Some audio clips: Star Trek Intro, Sinners, Space Cruiser Yamato/Star Blazers, Heterodyne (Commodore64 style!), Rotors of Raga (entire archive)

You too can build your own Theremin. For the less tech savvy, you can always buy a Theremin kit. The Theremin is one of many unusual instruments for you to discover.

Invented by Russian physicist Leon Theremin in the 1920's, the Theremin is not only the predecessor of the synthesizer, it's one of the earliest electronic musical instruments and produces music in relation to the musician's hands in the air! The sound of the Theremin is as eerie as it's beautiful.

Some audio clips: Star Trek Intro, Sinners, Space Cruiser Yamato/Star Blazers, Heterodyne (Commodore64 style!), Rotors of Raga (entire archive)

You too can build your own Theremin. For the less tech savvy, you can always buy a Theremin kit. The Theremin is one of many unusual instruments for you to discover.

At first I thought you could make sound by waving your hands at a sensor or something.

Hmm... Come to think of it, a software version of the Theremin would be extremely cool.

Perhaps one could make it a Mac program to work with those iSight cameras.

I predict that by the year 2006 "the good professor" will get fed up and quit using the internet. (cue weird theremin music -- http://www.thereminworld.com/)

Interesting reading.

(Theremin was also the guy who invented the widget that makes the eerie flying-saucer sounds in old sci-fi movies -- called, unsurprisingly enough, a "theremin".)

The problem for us, though, was that our stuff needed to be portable for travel. Our 3 person team made a ukulele-sized strum instrument, a flute, and a xylophone sort of instrument. The flute was just a pipe with appropriate holes drilled. The 'xylophone' was my instrument, and here's what I did:

I went to the lumberyard/hardware store and bought a couple 8' lengths of electrical conduit, the galvanized looking metal stuff. Used a hacksaw to cut a length around 1' long, and put rubber bands around each end. Thus, you could lay the tube on a tabletop, and the rubber bands would keep the metal off the table. Strike that with a mallet, and you get a very pleasant resonating tone. I used a file and a tuner to shorten the tube to get the proper pitch. Then it's just a matter of really old math and some filing to fill out the rest of your instrument. I used tinkertoys to make the mallets. The round wood wheel things gave a nice tone.

The best part of the thing is, the tubes don't need to be mounted, so I brought the whole thing cross country in a plastic bag (as carryon, no less. Only got hand searched once).

Something I want to try sometime is to make my own Theremin.

If you want to wave your arms around to make music, you still can't beet a Theremin.

Clicking = good.

Another aspect is the idea of "a very complex gestural language between man and machine." Why do I envision a theremin. Let's face it, programmers are not neccesarly the most nimble of people.

The idea of a password being encrypted in a gesture is also a step backwards, imo. Why not just use biometrics?

This site has more info on the Theremin synth mentioned in the article, even including schematics and other info to build one yourself! I've seen the Theremin being played on a Jean-Michel Jarre concert, and boy, that's weird!

-John