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Fan Cart
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If a sailboat is stranded because there is no wind, is it possible to set up a fan on deck and blow wind into the sail to make the boat move?
Kinetic Sculpture: Program the Pico Cricket to Make Your Art Light Up or Spin
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Use a Pico Cricket (micro-controller) to animate your art! You can program a Pico Cricket to make your art spin, light up, or make music.
Electric Paddle Boat
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In this activity, learners build an electric two-paddle boat using paint paddles, plastic knives, and empty water bottles.
Creepy Crawlers
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Trick your family and friends with this creepy crawler that moves up and down. In this activity, learners construct a circuit and motor device that will move a homemade spider in a spooky way.
Aluminum-Air Battery: Foiled again!
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Construct a simple battery that's able to power a small light or motor out of foil, salt water, and charcoal. A helpful video, produced by the Exploratorium, guides you along on this activity.
Robot Body Language
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In this robotics activity, learners find ways to express emotions and feelings using only body movements, not facial expressions.
Cup Speaker
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Make your own speaker with a magnet, wire, and paper cup! If you have a radio with a headphone plug and an old pair of headphones, this is a great tinkering activity.
Human Battery
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Learners place their hands on different metals and use an ammeter to monitor the flow of electricity from one metal to another.
Smart Domino Tricks
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In this activity, you take regular dominoes, and turn them into conductive switches that can turn on a LEGO RCX block or Pico Cricket (micro controller). LEGO RCX block or Pico Cricket is required.
Circuit Board
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Learners make a circuit board that has questions and answers. When the correct answer is chosen for a question, a circuit is completed and a light illuminates.
Make a Speaker: A Coil, a Magnet, and Thou
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Make your own simple speaker so you can listen to your favorite radio station. Just wind a coil, attach it to a piece of cardboard or Styrofoam, hold a magnet nearby, and listen.
Musical Sculpting Machine: Squeeze Play-Doh to Make Music
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Play-Doh is conductive! Use the semiconductive qualities of Play-Doh to make your own squeezable instrument. Pico Cricket is required.
Build a Bubble Circuit
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In this engineering design challenge, learners make a bubble maze that allows bubbles to move through a series of “on” and “off” switches.
Fruit Xylophone: Fruit Salad Instrument of the Future!
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This is a perfect summertime lunch activity! Pico Cricket is required (micro controller). First, get a bunch of cut up fruit, line them up, then plug a piece of fruit with a Pico Cricket sensor clip.
Electric Messages: Then and Now
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In this activity, learners explore electronic communication, the Morse Code system, and advances all the way through text messaging. Learners build a simple circuit, send messages to one another.
Interactive Pencil Drawings: Drawings That Tell a Story!
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Margaret Pezalla-Granlund, a Minnesota artist, came up with this really fun and surprising activity using graphite from a pencil, connected with a Pico Cricket to tell a story: "The first time I saw s
Stripped-down Motor
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In this activity, you'll make an electric motor--a simple version of the electric motors found in toys, tools, and appliances everywhere.
Watch and Create! Creativity For Sustainability
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In this activity, children and adults work together to explore their relationship with technology and examine ways to make sustainable media consumption choices.
Pico Cricket Compass
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Learners can program a compass to draw a circle by itself using a Pico Cricket, some Legos, and lots of tape! Pico Cricket is required.
Glowing Pickle
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In this activity, high voltage is applied across a pickle to emit a yellow glow. This activity should only be conducted by skilled adults and is best suited as a demonstration.