SCIENCE ACTIVITY TIME SUMMER OF ’17

The Science Activity Time for students who have finished 3rd-6th grades has been popular again this summer.

Here are pictures of the 3 programs held this summer:

The last meeting for our scientists was to deconstruct the electronics our patrons brought in for us. Thank you to everyone who brought in keyboards, old phones, cell phones and whatever for the students to explore! Scroll through to see all the happy faces and at the end you’ll see just how many items were donated!

   

Some screws were so tiny we needed light and magnification to see them.
A wide variety of tools were necessary for the many creations we disassembled
The group of 17 children began with 15 keyboards. We worked as a group discovering and when they were apart each student was able to choose the next item. Telephones, Cellphones,laptops, remotes, and a computer tower to name a few of the many choices we attacked with curiosity.
Wire cutters were employed only after all batteries were removed.
A small part of the aftermath of all the fun had.

    

 

 

 

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

 

 

The second meeting, June 15, was just before Father’s Day. So, we made special cards for our dads! They light up!! Of all the projects this summer this one certainly required the most precision.  For those young scientist who like to take the initiative  it sometimes meant backtracking, redoing and tweaking the steps until all the rules of circuitry were followed so their cards actually lit up.

  This is the message inside the card for their lucky dads.

***********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

The first Science Activity this summer was the building of the Brush Bot. This was a little robot made with the brush of a tooth brush, batteries, mini vibrators and more.

Although some new students were at first frustrated by the lack of precision a”kit” could offer they soon joined the fun of being their own designers and creators.

The students had a great time building and testing their bots.

 

Can you see the eyes on this little robot? This little bot was created so it moved in circles. That was great for our counter demo, but most of the bristle bots seemed to have a mind of their own depending on how the weight was placed on the toothbrush head.

 

Similar to a pin ball machine, bots could score points as they bumped certain parts of the board. The only “remote control” was a straw and human hot air blown thru it towards the bot.
Having used hot glue guns with the children several times this year I was thrilled to observe how comfortably and safely they operated them.
In the foreground we also had a race track in which some bots flew thru, some bots ping-ponged their way through and some had a tough time going anywhere but in circles. With some altering the weight balance of the battery and vibrator some direction alterations were successful to compete in the race.