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Fan Cart
Source Institutions
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?
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Kinetic Sculpture: Program the Pico Cricket to Make Your Art Light Up or Spin
Source Institutions
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.
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Aluminum-Air Battery: Foiled again!
Source Institutions
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.
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Cup Speaker
Source Institutions
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.
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Human Battery
Source Institutions
Learners place their hands on different metals and use an ammeter to monitor the flow of electricity from one metal to another.
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Smart Domino Tricks
Source Institutions
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.
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Make a Speaker: A Coil, a Magnet, and Thou
Source Institutions
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.
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Musical Sculpting Machine: Squeeze Play-Doh to Make Music
Source Institutions
Play-Doh is conductive! Use the semiconductive qualities of Play-Doh to make your own squeezable instrument. Pico Cricket is required.
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Build a Bubble Circuit
Source Institutions
In this engineering design challenge, learners make a bubble maze that allows bubbles to move through a series of “on” and “off” switches.
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Fruit Xylophone: Fruit Salad Instrument of the Future!
Source Institutions
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.
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Interactive Pencil Drawings: Drawings That Tell a Story!
Source Institutions
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
![](/sites/default/files/styles/square_100/public/resource_images/smile-000-000-002-664.jpg?itok=hkJtcN4-)
Pico Cricket Compass
Source Institutions
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.
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Glow Up
Source Institutions
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.
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Pickle-oh!: Musical Pickle Instrument
Source Institutions
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.
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Clap Sensor: Build a Sound Sensor Using a Pico Cricket
Source Institutions
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.
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Speedboat
Source Institutions
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.
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Social Fireflies: Pico "Firefly" Communication
Source Institutions
Make two firefly lanterns, then program them to blink to one another and change colors.
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Night Lights
Source Institutions
In this activity, learners create night lights using a plastic cup, programmable PICO Cricket, tri-color LED, and sensor.
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Push Pull Painter
Source Institutions
In this activity, learners create painting machines that can paint moving forwards and backwards.
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Personal Fan
Source Institutions
Cool off in the heat with this project! Learners use simple materials to build a fan that runs on a motor.