Back in the late 80's, early 90's I was teaching a class of gifted kids. We did a unit on the physics of sound, where the kids built a laser oscillator using a helium neon laser, a speaker, and a mirror. I let the kids work on synthesizers, etc.

One of our projects was a prepared piano EXACTLY as described here. I tied the ends of pieces of 50lb test fishing cord to popsicle sticks and coated the strings with bow resin. Each kid had one string and was responsible for one note. We did a short Christmas concert with the piano for the other classes.

One other project involved four Apple IIe computers. Using BASIC we could program one line of music on each computer. Taking a four-part Bach chorale, we programed the bass in to one computer, the tenor into another, then the soprano and alto lines. Once everything was set up, we hit enter on all four computers simultaneously.

Ah, for the good old days. That was a fun class to for a geek like me to teach, whether or not the kids really got anything out of it.

John Carpenter's "Escape from New York" showed Air Force One narrowly missing the twin towers before crashing in Manhattan.

The video is available on Google Video at the following URL...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4796674762025998102