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I've just found out that I may have my munchkin for some length of time this summer and am wanting to have some Really Cool Science fun ready for him, and thought this would be the best place ever for ideas. The reasons I use "may have" and "some length of time" are quite personal, quite unfortunate and quite guaranteed to press my cranial circulatory system far beyond its pressure tolerance if I think about it too long, but I mention it so that suggestions consider that I possibly won't be able to do summer-long projects or ones that require a lot of parts or preparations that may not even be used.
Anyway, I've thought way back to things from my own larval geekette stage and these are the rejects so far:
Rocketry. All the kids I grew up with loved rockets, and I introduced him to them a couple of years ago. We bought a ready-made and we built a couple from scratch, and had a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I'm currently living in the city so we don't have a handy launch zone. If we have the opportunity we'll fly the ones he already has, but I don't want to have him build something he might not be able to see fly.
Tesla Coil. Noisy, pretty and guaranteed to please young mad scientists. Also very likely to cook someone. Probably me.
Astronomy. As far as star-gazing, we'll probably do the planetarium, but Dallas light-saturates the sky for miles, so fieldwork isn't practical. I'm sure there are other ideas under this general heading, but I haven't explored it yet.
So far I'm thinking about the ubiquitous crystal radio, since it is easy and I think he'd be surprised at building something that just works, sans batteries or cords. Of course the interest will probably die quickly afterward since what can you do with a box that basically just lets you listen to an entire spectrum solely consisting of voices ranting about politics...
Also have been considering a Van de Graaf generator. Has the fun of sparks and other effects with less assurance of Certain Death as some of the other projects.
So any help would be appreciated! He's really a smart kid and loves science and mathematics right now. I like to have an environment for him that challenges those interests and lets him discover a lot for himself. I've looked at some neat kits this afternoon, but I prefer the idea of DIY, and he enjoys tinkering with things and has always learned a lot that way. Aside from the considerations mentioned above, a couple others would be projects that might introduce multiple disciplines (f'rinstance I thought the Van de Graaf would introduce both mechanical and electrical concepts) and aren't too 'spensive (since I'm very poor!).
His own input to the suggestions would be anything that is !!!EXTREME!!! |
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