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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?

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.

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.

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.

Learners place their hands on different metals and use an ammeter to monitor the flow of electricity from one metal to another.

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.

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.

Play-Doh is conductive! Use the semiconductive qualities of Play-Doh to make your own squeezable instrument. Pico Cricket is required.

In this engineering design challenge, learners make a bubble maze that allows bubbles to move through a series of “on” and “off” switches.

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.

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

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.

In this activity, learners explore chemiluminescence and fluorescence. Learners examine 3 different solutions in regular light, in the dark with added bleach solution, and under a black light.

What's a Pickle-Oh? Two pieces of pickle on a stick are connected to a Pico Cricket (micro controller). When you slide the pickles apart the note changes.

This activity requires a Pico Cricket (tiny computer). Learners work on designing and building a sound sensor out of household materials, like plastic wrap and cardboard.

In this activity, learners build a speedboat using paint paddles, a propeller, and film canister. Learners attach a simple circuit and motor to the boat to power the propellers.

Make two firefly lanterns, then program them to blink to one another and change colors.

In this activity, learners create night lights using a plastic cup, programmable PICO Cricket, tri-color LED, and sensor.

In this activity, learners create painting machines that can paint moving forwards and backwards.

Cool off in the heat with this project! Learners use simple materials to build a fan that runs on a motor.