Search Results

During this hands-on activity, learners are briefly exposed to moviemaking and animation, when they create their own thaumatropes.

Learn how to make and fly a paper helicopter! This simple activity includes a template (for the copter "blades") and instructions for folding, flying, and testing designs.

In this activity, learners make an optical illusion toy from the 1800s to explore persistence of vision.

In this hands-on engineering project, kids use two simple machines, levers and inclined planes, to construct their own pinball machines.

In this activity, learners build a simple tabletop seesaw to test how different variables (the position of the fulcrum, distance, weight) affect its balance under increasing weight loads.

In this project, students explore how levers work, by making a puppet with moving limbs.

In this optics activity, learners build an animation tool to make mini movies. When you spin a phenakistascope, the pictures move so quickly that your eyes and brain can't separate the images.

In this hands-on activity, children create their own kites that can fly indoors. Learners are exposed to basic concepts of gravity and air resistance.

In this hands-on activity, learners build their own kaleidoscopes and explore how light can reflect of off surfaces such as mirrors, to produce beautiful patterns.

In this playful, goopy activity, learners mix two liquids to create a solid (that sometimes acts like a liquid ), using basic household materials such as borax and glue.

In this simple and fun activity, learners discover the relationship between vibration and sound by making a squeaky toy instrument out of simple household materials.

Make your own "Dance Dance Revolution" dance pad! In this design challenge activity, learners work in teams to build a dance pad that lets you use your feet to sound a buzzer or flash a light.

In this activity, learners will build a roller coaster for a marble to run on using everyday household materials such as paper towel or toilet paper rolls, cups, boxes, books, buckets, chairs, etc.

In this activity, learners make some music by constructing a kazoo out of a simple plastic drinking straw. Use this activity to explore sound, vibrations, and music.

In this activity, learners build a racecar using only a rubber band, spool, straw, and paper clip! This racer is a classic toy that zips across a flat surface.

This fun activity uses simple materials such as milk cartons and mirrors to introduce the ideas of optics and visual perception.

In this engineering activity (page 5 of PDF), young learners investigate how materials and design contribute to the strength of a structure, particularly walls.