To make my bongos, I decided to use my brother's formula cans and a wire hanger to tie them together. I took a hanger downstairs and compared the width of it with different nails to see what nail would match best with the width of the hanger to make the right size hole for the wire to go through. So I went out to the garage with the formula cans and nail.

My mom helped hold the nail that I picked in the place where I wanted it in the sides of the formula cans. Then I carefully hammered the nail but all that did was make imprints so we made an imprint in each place I wanted the hole to be in the formula cans.

My dad got a drill and I picked the drill bit that matched the size of the hanger width. Then my dad held the drill and I pulled the trigger for each imprint, so it would make the holes in the sides of the formula cans.

The next day I got wire cutters and cut the hanger into two even sized wire strips and tried sticking them through the holes in the formula cans. I found the hanger strips were a little to big. So I had to use a little screwdriver to make the holes a little bit bigger. Now that the holes were big enough I stuck the wire strips in. Next I used masking tape, with my dad's help; I wrapped it around the ends of the wire strips so the formula cans wouldn't twist around.

The next day I got wood grained contact paper and dad helped me measure it and put it on the formula cans to decorate them.

The next day dad helped me wrap a stronger kind of tape around the ends of the wire strips because the formula cans were still not as stable as I wanted it. Next I used some paint and a paintbrush and started making red checker squares around the top of the formula cans. I left white spots in between the red squares where I was going to paint the black checker squares after I let the paint dry. I had to put a second coat of paint in the same spots to make it more solid. After that finished drying I painted black squares in the white spots.

I worked on this about 2 hrs. 50 minutes.

The sound my instrument makes is produced by me patting on the top of the formula cans. I pat my bongos really hard to make it have loud dynamics. To make the dynamics different I pat my bongos lightly for soft dynamics. To change the pitch I filled one bongo with sand. When I pat on the bongo that has sand it has a low pitch. When I pat on the bongo that doesn't have sand in it the bongo has a higher pitch. The timbre of my instrument sounds like people stamping their feet.