Long Live Harry Potter

Even though the last Harry Potter movie is complete, there’s still plenty of life left in the Harry Potter world.  So, for all of the folks who are mourning the completion of the final Harry Potter movie, here are some ideas for getting more mileage out of the tremendous body of work currently available.

1. First of all, the novels are so richly detailed that readers should read through the series again. Find those clues hinting at future events you missed the first time through.
2. For added interest, take turns reading the books aloud, using voices for different characters.
3. Plan a vacation in Orlando, Florida. Visit the new Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios.
4. Check out the new Pottermore website.  J.K. Rowling‘s new Pottermore site promises to provide an engaging online experience around the Potter series and characters.
5. Make a Harry Potter wand sheath that fits inside of your robes!
6. Host a Harry Potter weekend movie fest for the family and watch the entire series. For added fun, invite viewers to dress as their favorite Harry Potter characters and serve Butter Beer.
7. Encourage young fans to write their own Harry Potter fan books.
8. Discover the Harry Potter movie music, especially if young fans are also musicians.

Have more fun activities to add to this list?  Add them to our comments section and help us celebrate Harry Potter!

Summer Citizen Science Ideas

Just because school’s out doesn’t mean kids should sit around watching TV or playing video games all day!  There are some really fun citizen science participation opportunities that are not only fun for the participant, but useful for real scientists who analyze the data to further their research.  How cool is that?

Here are a few of the citizen science programs we like.  If you have one you like, please share through our comments section!

Sci.spy

The Science Channel is empowering citizen scientists with camera phone devices to snap pictures of plants, animals, insects, etc. A free Sci.spy app makes it easy to register the location of the photo, and users are encouraged to add descriptive tags to help categorize the photos. So, get off the couch and start contributing to research initiatives that rely on citizen data.

SpaceHack

SpaceHack is a collection of physics, astronomy, and space-related citizen science projects aimed at teens.  SpaceHack has some very interesting projects that help participants learn about data, data access, data formats, and data analysis.

Firefly Watch

The Museum of Science, Boston, is coordinating citizen scientists from around the U.S. to submit firefly counts at a chosen location during the summer. Additionally, they’ve made observation data available for everyone to download and analyze.

Project BudBurst

Help researchers investigate the effects of climate change by documenting changes in plants as seasons change.  Using a standardized data format, scientists gather citizen data from around the U.S. Also, data is available for download so citizen scientists can track changes, too!

Scientific American Citizen Science

Scientific American has dedicated a section of its website to citizen science.  There are some really cool projects and games highlighted on this site.

Fun Sustainability Games, Videos and Learning Resources

Kids love learning online.  There are numerous online resources available for learning about sustainability, but we’ve selected a few that are extra cool.  After all, our philosophy is that learning is fun!

PBSKids

Great  short videos designed for kids, PBSKids Loop Scoops tackles topics like manufacturing of “stuff”, recycling, and the environment.

Rustle the Leaf

Rustle the Leaf is a fun comic strip site geared toward kids.  We like the coloring pages, videos, and lesson plans on the site.

Catchment Detox

Catchment Detox is an online entrepreneurial-style sustainability game where the player makes choices to build a sustainable and prosperous water drainage basin (catchment).

Water Footprint Calculator

National Geographic has a fun interactive water footprint calculator that helps kids learn about how their lifestyle impacts the environment.

Eco Innovator’s sustainability Quiz iPod/iPhone/iPad app

This free app quizzes the user about sustainability principles allowing winners to unlock mini games.

Recycle Old Junk Into Cool Make Projects

We throw away so much stuff!  Before tossing those empty paper towel rolls into the trash, consider giving them an extended life by transforming them into something beautiful, useful, and fun.  We’ve found some great websites that offer simple and more complicated projects for recycling broken, used, and disposable items.

Make-Stuff.com  has some really creative projects, many of which use household materials that would otherwise get thrown away.  Although the site isn’t fancy and there aren’t any photos of the projects, there are tons of projects to choose from and many are easy enough for even the youngest learner.

Ziggity Zoom has some fun cardboard and paint crafts (and more).  These projects appeal to the younger set but look like so much fun!

ReplayGround has some really cool art/craft projects designed from mostly recycled materials.  We really like the mint tin magnetic word play project.

Recycled Tech as Art– Don’t throw out those old floppy disks, CDs and computers.  Check out this site for inspiration on repurposing those tech gadgets into art.

I Make Projectsis a teen/adult electronics projects website.  There’s a wide variety of projects, but the coolest projects hack old electronic devices.

Twenty Common Sense Ways to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint

According to the Yahoo! Green website, the average American emits 9.44 tons of CO2 per year.  In fact, the U.S. ranks second among all countries for carbon emissions.  Let’s look at twenty common sense changes we can all make to help reduce our family’s Carbon footprint.

1. Eat a meatless meal once per week. If you’re really serious about reducing your meat consumption, watch Graham Hill’s TEDTalk on being a weekday vegetarian.
2. Eat a meatless meal once per day.
3. Buy locally grown food.
4. Buy organic foods (a large percentage of  fossil fuels used on farms goes toward making fertilizers).
5. Use 100% recycled computer printer paper.
6. Recycle all aluminum cans in your garbage.
7. Use a washable mug instead of a styrofoam cup for your coffee or hot cocoa.
8. Bring your own canvas bags to the store instead of using plastic or paper.
9. Use washable plates and utensils instead of disposables whenever possible.
10. Get a reusable water bottle instead of disposables.
11. Buy products with minimal packaging.
12. Run the clothes washer only with full loads.
13. Air dry your clothes in spring and summer instead of using the dryer.
14. Buy vintage clothes instead of new stuff at the mall.
15. Wash your clothes in cold water.
16. Unplug electronics when not using them.
17. Replace your lawn with native plants.
18. Turn your thermostat down two degrees in the winter and up two degrees in the summer.
19. Drive the speed limit.
20. Drive less aggressively, don’t accelerate and brake rapidly.

If you modify your lifestyle to include all of these simple changes, you’ll offset your carbon footprint by 1.23 tons CO2/year.  If you’re really committed to offsetting your carbon footprint even further, check out Yahoo! Green’s nifty CO2 calculator and Green Planner.

How to Customize a Lego Minifigure

Lego minifigures are as easy to mix and match as bricks in Lego sets.  In most cases, simply changing a body color and adding different hair, hat, or helmet is enough customization to transform a minifigure.  In some cases, though, you need a very specific body and face to build a convincing minifigure.  For example, super heroes such as Batman and Robin have very specific bodies and, in Robin’s case, faces.  Finding a currently available Lego set that contains a factory Robin is difficult at best, and purchasing from collectors is expensive.

We did the next best thing.  We found an appropriately colored generic Lego body, legs, hair, and face and customized with model paint to transform our generic minifigure into Robin for a fraction of the cost of a factory minifigure on Ebay.

Although we created Robin, this technique will work for any custom minifigure you desire to make.

Here are the items you’ll need to transform your Lego minifigure:

1. Fine point marker ( we use a sharpie pen)
2. Enamel model paints (purchase at craft stores near plastic models) and thinner for cleaning the brush and thinning any old paint
3. Small, thin artists paint brush (we used a size zero round brush designed for painting on glass because that’s what we had on hand)
4. A photo of the factory minifigure (Google images is a great place to start)

Supplies to transform your minifigure

To make a cape, you’ll need:

1. One sheet of heavyweight construction paper in color of choice
2. Pencil
3. Scissors
4. Hole punch
5. An existing minifigure cape to use as a template

Step 1

Start with a blank minifigure body and head of choice, and reference the factory Lego minifigure photo.  Using your fine tip marker, carefully draw the details on the body and onto the back (blank) side of the head.  You can use a tissue or napkin to erase the drawing until you get it right.

Custom face drawn onto back of existing minifigure head

Step 2

Begin carefully painting the details using the fine artist’s brush.  Tip: Our project required a base color with details on top.  Let the base paint dry at least ten minutes before applying the details.  Also, a paper towel or napkin works great to wipe fresh paint if you make a mistake.

Use a fine artist brush to paint over drawn lines

Step 3

Add detail touches to the minifigure

Body details

Making Robin’s Cape

Step 1

Trace the outline of an existing minifigure cape onto heavyweight construction paper.

Trace a cape onto heavyweight construction paper

Step 2

Using scissors, carefully cut out around the outside of the cape you’ve outlined on the construction paper

Carefully cut around the outline of the cape (not the holes yet)

Step 3

Fold your cape lightly in half lengthwise without creating a crease.  Carefully place a single hole punch over the hole outline and punch a hole.

Finished Cape!

Congratulations!  The minifigure transformation is now complete.

Robin the Boy Wonder

Related Posts

• How to Build a Lego Star Wars Snow Speeder From Spare Lego Parts
• Create Candy and Crayon Lego Bricks & Minifigures
• Lego iPod Holder
• Use Existing Lego Parts to Build Popular Lego Kits
• Lego Projects

 

Hands-on Physics: Making a Rube Goldberg Device

The ultimate open-ended creative project is the Rube Goldberg contraption.  Everything about a Rube Goldberg device involves physics, and what a great way to immerse kids in physics and engineering design principles.  Depending on their set-up, kids will encounter friction, kinetic and potential energy, spring forces, magnetic forces, pulleys, Newtons laws, projectile motion, and more!

Have the kids gather up a bunch of old friction toys, magnets, marbles, race tracks, dominos, tinker toys, and anything else that looks interesting.   Challenge them to create a device that accomplishes something from the scavenged parts.  In our case, we decided to trap a toy friction beetle in a food tin.

Physics

We started off by sending a marble down an elevated track (potential energy and kinetic energy).  The marble drops on a platform and transfers some of its energy to the dominos, which transfer energy to both the beetle and a strong magnetic marble.  The beetle, wound-up and held back by minimal friction forces, gets a push and overcomes the friction force to move along the track towards the trap.  At the same time the magnetic marble gets a small transfer of energy from the dominos and rolls toward a metal can.  The metal can houses a strong magnetic marble inside and has just enough magnetic force to hold a hair pin tied to the end of a string, which forms the ‘cable’ for a pulley mechanism.  This mechanism holds another can suspended at a height above the ground. When the rolling magnetic marble contacts the stationary can (with its own magnetic marble inside), the rolling magnetic marble disrupts the magnetic force holding the hair pin.  As a result, the hair pin pulls free of the can’s internal marble magnet, allowing the suspended can to drop and ‘trap the beetle.

The Batman figure’s hand slows down (through added frictional force) the suspended can.  He also catches the hair pin at the end of the pulley cable so that the trapping can doesn’t bounce.

Engineering

The engineering challenges faced in this kind of project model real-world situations.  For example, our young learner had to deal with a multitude of engineering problems.  Structurally, he needed to choose rigid materials for building stable towers (tinker toys) while in other instances, devise strong connection mechanisms (rubber bands and erector sets).  He found that towers need  anchors when they hold weight near the top, and that marbles speeding too fast fly off the track.  He found silly putty too soft for stabilizing objects, but rubber bands light and strong.

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Rube Goldberg Construction Tips

• Start simple. This project can quickly overwhelm young learners, so encourage simple mechanisms to start.  Dominos and marbles are great.
• Time and Space. Rube Goldberg devices can take up a lot of space and time.  Plan a space that you can dedicate to the project for at least a few days.  Plan time to design, test, redesign, test, etc.
• YouTube. There are tons of YouTube videos featuring Rube Goldberg devices in action.  Our favorite is the OK Go music video.  Check it out for a bit of inspiration!
• Physics principles. Richard P. Feynman produced the Fun to Imagine physics videos aimed at kids.  In them, he talks about physics principles in common language.  This would be a great series to view before beginning your project.

 

Happy Pi Day!

We love Pi day, a day with the same date signature as Pi (3/14 – 3.14).  We’ve created a fun way for kids to explore the relationship between the circle and Pi. Check out our post over on GeekMom for a fun activity that makes learning about Pi really fun.

Riddle Game with QR Codes

The iPod touch and the iPad (among other smart mobile devices with built-in cameras) are very powerful little computers.  What’s more, many kids (some as young as 5) own such devices.  We’ve created a fun game that encourages kids to think, to use their devices to retrieve information, and to learn a bit about QR Codes (Quick Response Codes).  QR Codes are fancy bar codes, and QR codes can store much more data than traditional bar codes.  The iPod touch (camera version) and Android devices can easily scan QR codes with the use of special applications (Apps).  There are dozens to choose from, and we’re not recommending any particular scanner Apps, but there are many free and paid QR Code scanners to choose from in the App stores.  To learn more about QR Codes, check out the entertaining videos on 2DCodeme.com and of course, the entry in Wikipedia.

To play our game, first try to solve each riddle.  If the riddle stumps you, or you want to check your answers, simply scan the QR code for each riddle and click on the link that appears on your device screen.  The resulting page displays the answer.  If you don’t have a device capable of scanning a QR code, “LIKE” our Facebook page and post the riddle that stumps you, and we’ll post the answer for you!

Riddle 1

“The beginning of eternity

The end of time and space

The beginning of every end,

And the end of every place.”

Answer to Riddle 1

Riddle 2

I never was, am always to be.

No one ever saw me, nor ever will.

And yet I am the confidence of all, To live and breathe on this terrestrial ball.

What am I?

Answer to Riddle 2

Riddle 3

Half-way up the hill, I see thee at last, lying beneath me with thy sounds and sights

— A city in the twilight, dim and vast, with smoking roofs, soft bells, and gleaming lights.

Answer to Riddle 3

Riddle 4

Until I am measured

I am not known,Yet how you miss me

When I have flown.

Answer to Riddle 4

Riddle 5

As I was going to St. Ives,

I met a man with seven wives.

Every wife had seven sacks.

Every sack had seven cats.

Every  cat had seven kits.

Kits, cats, sacks, and wives,

How many were going to St. Ives?

Answer to Riddle 5

Riddle 6

You heard me before,

Yet you hear me again,

Then I die,

Till you call me again.

Answer to Riddle 6

Riddle 7

What does man love more than life

Fear more than death or mortal strife

What the poor have, the rich require,and what contented men desire,

What the miser spends and the spendthrift saves

And all men carry to their graves?

Answer to Riddle 7

Riddle 8

Five hundred begins it,

five hundred ends it,

Five in the middle is seen;

First of all figures, the first of all letters,Take up their stations between.

Join all together, and then you will bring

Before you the name of an eminent king.

Answer to Riddle 8

Riddle 9

I am, in truth, a yellow fork

From tables in the sky

By inadvertent fingers dropped

The awful cutlery.

Of mansions never quite disclosed

And never quite concealed

The apparatus of the dark To ignorance revealed.

Answer to Riddle 9

Riddle 10

I cannot be other than what I am

Until the man who made me dies

Power and glory will fall to me finally

Only when he last closes his eyes.

Answer to Riddle 10

Howtoons: Geeky Comics Show Kids How to Make Stuff from Household Items

Howtoons is a comic-based website full of rich comic strips containing ingenious instructions on how to make things using basic science and engineering principles.  Aimed at 8 to 12-year olds, Howtoons uses rich, colorful animation and a fun story to engage children’s natural interest in humor, comic strips, and having fun.

Our youngster gravitated to the marshmallow shooter, the laser-sighted spit ball gun, and the counting in binary comics.  I like the learning to tell time by the sun comic.  There are dozens of great comic strips on the Howtoons site, and a handy keyword search to help you find topics of specific interest.  There are also published Howtoons books, posters, t-shirts, and kits available for purchase on the Howtoons website.

Many of the projects encourage using objects that would be otherwise discarded, cost little or no money, and are simple fairly simple to make.  The science and engineering principles are craftily weaved into the story line, so learning happens through play, not through formalized education. For us, that makes all the difference.