Mixing it up

My excuse for blowing seventy bucks on a premium set of Snap Circuits was that it would keep the kids busy in case it rained on our vacation. In reality, I have been lusting after this "toy" for a couple of years. My father, an electrical engineer, pooh-poohed: Just send them down to the garage with me. I'll show'em how to make real circuits!

No doubt he will. But I might as well prep them a little bit with the ready-made stuff they can do without adult supervision. As for myself, I prefer to stay as far away from the soldering iron as possible.

So I parted ways with my seventy dollars, and came home with a large box.

The rainy day activity turned out to be a smashing success, and initially resulted in circuitry components being fought over with some violence among the kids. Everyone wanted to have a turn. The moment of reconciliation arrived upon the completion of the Flying Saucer project, in which a small red propeller levitated over our heads, and all assembled, in unison and amazement said: aaahhhhh!

OK, I tired and tried, but the picture doesn't quite do it justice. You'll have to use your imagination.

Since the propeller proved to be so fantastically popular with the kids, I decided to adapt a low-tech experiment from another favorite resource of mine: a Brown Paper School Book called Gee, Wiz, on mixing art and science.

Following instructions in the book, we drew a circle incorporating a pattern of primary colors, attached it to the propeller, and put it on the circuit board.

We made predictions about how we would perceive the colors on the circle once the propeller started spinning. Then, we tested our predictions, and, by golly, they turned out to be correct!

I'm looking forward to more fun with these resources. Especially the Brown Paper books, since I recently stumbled upon a full set of them. I can't stop reading them. Chances are I will learn something.

Comments

[kim]

Aren't they fun? We thrifted the mega set a few years ago for $10 and I nearly fainted when I discovered it.