Physics: Quiz boards Day 2

This week the kids finished their quizboards - hopefully by now you've seen them, played with them, and hopefully not broken them! This was NOT an easy project. It took a lot of patience and attention to detail, checking and rechecking connections in the circuits, but in the end it paid off. "Operation's" got nothing on these quizboards.

Physics: Quiz board

This week the kids started to build quizboards.

What's a quizboard? A quizboard is a game in which you try to match up questions with the correct answers. If you succeed, a light bulb turns on, and if you get the question wrong, nothing happens.

Interesting child psychology fact: When I do this activity, it is ALWAYS the case that kids suggest adding features to the quizboard that will punish players with a beep or even a shock for wrong answers. Go figure...

As of last week the kids have written their quizzes and started building and insulating the wires that will connect questions and their respective answers. Next time we meet they will complete their quizboards and bring them home.

Physics: Circuits are cool!

This week's experiment was originally called: "Experimenting with different kinds of circuits," but about 5 minutes into it, the kids decided to change the name to "Circuits are cool." We did, and they are. The kids learned about the parts of a circuit: battery, load, and wires, and they were challenged to build circuits that could turn on light, motors, and annoying beeping machines. What's that saying...necessity is the mother of invention? Following their success with the annoying beeping machines, we introduced the concept of switches. Ah....sweet silence.

Physics: Batteries

This week we introduced a new topic: electricity. We started off by examining some batteries, taking note of things like voltage and the fact that every battery has a positive and a negative terminal. After a brief discussion about what batteries are and how they work, the kids made batteries out of grapefruit and strips of copper and zinc. Using a voltmeter we confirmed that our batteries worked. A single grapefruit has a voltage of around 1 v, which compared to your 1.5 v AAs is no small potatoes (FYI potatoes make great batteries too)! We attached wires to the battery, hooked up an LED, and NOTHING. Apparently 1 v is not enough voltage to power an LED. But, when life gives you lemons,make lemonade, or in my case, when life gives you a grapefruit tree, make several grapefruit batteries in series and voilà! Let there be light!

Physics: Quiz-show Part II

This week the kids finished their quizboards - hopefully by now you've seen them, played with them, and hopefully not broken them! This was NOT an easy project. It took a lot of patience and attention to detail, checking and rechecking connections in the circuits, but in the end it paid off. "Operation's" got nothing on these quizboards.

If you haven't already, please register your kids and send in checks asap. Kids who aren't fully registered by next week will have to work off their debt at the Large Hadron Collider, tracking the subatomic chaos of protons colliding 300 feet underground in the bowels of this giant particle detector.

Physics: Quiz-boards

This week the kids started to build quizboards.

What's a quizboard? A quizboard is a game in which you try to match up questions with the correct answers. If you succeed, a light bulb turns on, and if you get the question wrong, nothing happens.

Interesting child psychology fact: When I do this activity, it is almost always the case that kids suggest adding features to the quizboard that will punish players with a beep or even a shock for wrong answers. Not your kids! Not only do these guys understand electrical circuits, but you can rest easy knowing they are far more forgiving (read less cuckoo) than your average kid.

As of today the kids have written their quizzes and started building and insulating the wires that will connect questions and their respective answers. Next time we meet they will complete their quizboards and bring them home.

Physics: Circuits

This week we experimented with different kinds of circuits. The kids learned about the basic parts of a circuit: battery, load, and wires, and then they were challenged to build and diagram circuits that could turn on lights, motors, and annoying beeping machines. What's that saying...necessity is the mother of invention? Following their success with the annoying beeping machines, we introduced the concept of switches. Ah....sweet silence.