Science Saturday: Stomp Rockets Revisited

Stomp rockets was one of the more successful Science Saturdays last year, so I thought it would be fun to revisit again this year. We had a few repeat visitors who wanted to do stomp rockets again, but we also had a lot of fun with new friends!

We had 4 store bought stomp rockets (affiliate link) set up for immediate action/reaction gratification. Basically the harder you jumped, the higher/further the rocket flew!

I also set up targets using our space cutouts from our Straw Rocket lesson we also did at last year's event.

Then for those who wanted the extra challenge, we made our own stomp rockets which we launched via the homemade stomp rocket launcher (the directions on how to build the stomp rocket launcher and rockets to fly off of them are found on that link). In short, for the rockets, you roll a piece of construction paper around a pipe of the same size as your launcher. You want it to be tight enough so you don't lose air through the paper gaps, but you also want it to be loose enough to come off of the launcher when you stomp. To close off the paper tube, you want to make a nose cone. I found the easiest way was to fold the corners down and tape it to make a triangle. Then you add wings.

Here's my sample rocket:

We had some interesting wing designs. This one started with cylinder wings:

We had a few request for heart shaped wings, so we tried half hearts:

The paper rockets can fly high! J almost made a basket with his orange rocket using our homemade launcher.

The plastic rockets fly very high and work very well but they are not durable. I'm disappointed in the quality of the plastic rockets that come with the set. I'd like to replace them, but it is actually cheaper to buy whole new sets! It just seems so wasteful. The homemade rockets also launched ok from the store bought launchers. They were a little big since the store bought launcher tube is smaller than the homemade one. We'll have to find something smaller to use to roll the paper rocket if we go solely into paper rocket territory after the plastic ones get too beaten up.

Thanks for all those who spent this beautiful Saturday morning with us. I look forward to the next Science Saturday. We're tentatively thinking the morning of July 13th if you are looking to save the date. If you want more specific details, feel free to email me using the address on the sidebar to the left (<<), and I'll add you to the email list.

BioX Kids Day 2013 - Elbows revisited

I was asked to help with Stanford BioX's Kids Day this year, which happened today!

I met lots of fun families. Thanks to all who stopped by to learn about how your arm works!

Here are some old posts for your reference if your elbow breaks (ouch!) or if you want to do it all by yourself. It's very easy and a wonderful way to learn how muscles move the bones in your body.

Elbow Booth Recap, BioX Kids Day 2012.

Elbow Lesson for High Schoolers (with a little kid adaptation).

Science Saturday Elbow Lesson (intro with moving a rock towards me by pushing on a string).

I love learning about how my body works. I hope you did too.

The science lab notebook

Science is really nothing if you can't describe what is happening and what you did to make it happen. All good scientist should keep a lab notebook full of their experiments. It also acts as a diary or journal about all the fun things you did and saw!

J is a little too young to keep one all by himself, but I want lab notebook keeping seem like an easy thing. I also found a super cute composition notebook for under $1 while stocking up for school supplies a year ago. J was thrilled for his new, ice cream covered science notebook.

I introduced the concept to him on the day we planted our garden and did our water density and floating egg experiment. I did the writing, but as I was writing, I was asking him questions and having him fill in the blanks. I drew some diagrams too, and he completed the drawings.

Parts of the notebook:

Front cover: I learned the hard way, after my lab notebook disappeared for a week, that you always want to put your name and if it's really important to you, a telephone number in case someone else finds it. Luckily, my notebook was placed on a ladder in the lab while I was distracted by impromptu visitors. Once found, my name and cell # immediately went on it.

Table of contents: I think for little kids, you're okay skipping this, unless you want a quick way to find what experiments you conducted. Leave a page or two blank in the front of the book and fill out the table of contents as you go. If you do a table of contents, I'd highly recommend numbering your experiment pages as you go.

Experiment pages: Follow the description below for each experiment. Some experiments will be much more elaborate or detailed than others. Some will be very simple. Work with your kid on a format that works for you. I like to ask J a lot of questions to see what he thinks as we go. I write his answers to my questions.

Generalities for notebook keeping: Always write in pen so your entries cannot be altered by you or someone else (falsifying information is never okay as a scientist). If you make a mistake, do not use whiteout or black it out with a marker. A single line through with your initials and date and the correct information written nearby will work. On professional notebooks, you want to sign and date every page. If it's important, like you are inventing something, you also want someone else to sign as a witness. Also, it is important to be neat. If you can't read and interpret your work, how will anybody else know what's going on?

For each experiment follow the format below:

Really, at a young age, simple is better. Here's the example page I worked on with J:

Date and Name of the Experiment

Introduction/Scientific Question: Why do you think what we're doing is important?

Hypothesis: What do you think is going to happen?

Materials and Methods: What did you use to do the experiment? How did you do the experiment? Drawings or pictures of how your experiment looked as it was set-up is very useful in this section.

Results: What happened? Drawings and graphs/charts are useful here too. On the graphics above, I drew the cups, and J drew the eggs (circles).

Discussion: Why did that happen? Was it what you expected/guessed/hypothesized? Can you explain why or why not? Do you have more questions posed by the results of your experiment? What can you do differently next time?

I hope you enjoyed this introduction to scientific notebook keeping. It's now a fun part of our science activities. J asks for his special science notebook all of the time.

Related post:
*Setting up a science fair display.

Rolobox: Car Wheels

I am at times an impulse shopper, especially if the item can be used towards many days of science fun. I was searching Amazon for cheap cardboard or reusable wheels that could be used with our sail/balloon cars. I did not find something compatible at first search, but I did find this product that seemed interesting: Rolobox Reuseable Wheel Kit for Boxes (affiliate link). It's just another tool we can add to our imagination and science play with boxes.

I like the minimal reusable packaging

I purchased Rolobox over the weekend and it arrived at my doorstep this afternoon, so we played a little bit after dinner. I'll admit that I didn't read the product description thoroughly before purchasing. The wheels are much larger than I expected. The wheels and axles are easy to assemble though parents should do the hole punching into the cardboard. Rolobox website shows a pencil for puncturing, but our shoe box needed scissors. Please use caution when cutting holes into cardboard (I am clumsy, which one reason I recommend hole punch + skewer sticks for axles when it comes to our toilet paper racers).

J and his new race car

Surprisingly, we had a shoebox handy (one that has outlasted the pair of shoes that came with them). I also thought a Cars box was pretty relevant for a (race) car science demonstration. It seems like it would work with tissue boxes and any corrugated cardboard box. 

Sciency things to do with makeshift car and Rolobox Wheels:

• Attach the wheels so you can put things in the box. How does the car move with different items in them? How does the car move when loaded down with rocks? How does the car move when loaded with tissues?
• How does the car roll on carpet vs. wood floor vs. linoleum/tile?
• Flip the box so the bottom of the box is the top of the car. Add a sail, balloon(s), or fan/motor(s). Can you get your car to move without pulling on the included string?
• Cut your car into a more aerodynamic shape (think "teardrop" or more like a triangle). Test it using gravity on a makeshift ramp (we use particle board as ramps) How does a more aerodynamic vehicle move in comparison to a boxy vehicle?

Now if only I could find reusable wheels small enough to attach to our toilet paper rolls (our most plentiful recyclable) that would also be light enough to move with simple kid power (blowing)...

Disclosure: I purchased Rolobox Wheels with my own money. Opinions are my own.

Official Rolobox Site and Rolobox's recommended place to purchase.

Kiwi Crate: Dancing Robot

I was featured in an ivillage piece on activities you could do with recyclables. Kiwi Crate was also featured in that same article. A day or two after it was published online, Kiwi Crate had contacted me praising Nerdy Science and offering me a free sample crate. I knew J was excited about our magnet detectives activity we had planned for the park the following week, and the moving Robot Rally crate seemed pretty sciency.

Kiwi Crate is a monthly-subscription activity kit, based out of the Bay Area. What we loved is that everything we needed to complete their activities was included in the one box (even kid-friendly scissors and a glue stick). I didn't tell J about it, but I let him be surprised by the nice green package on our doorstep. He was super excited the day it arrived!

We immediately opened it and got to work. The activity crate came with a tin, some popsicle sticks, wooden block, and double sided poster hanging tape to attach the robot parts to the body of the robot. It also included a magnet wand, a piece of cardboard, and a maze.

J with his robot arm

The magic behind the Robot Rally is that a simple tin (like an Altoid/mint box) is attracted to magnets.

The attraction is strong enough that the magnet sticks to the tin through cardboard!

When you place the magnet under the cardboard and the tin on top of the cardboard (above the magnet), you can move the magnet and see what happens to the robot tin on the top.

Kiwi Crate included a few mazes for the robot to follow, but J was most happy just seeing the robot dance (the maze frustrated him a little).

With our older kids who came to our first Science Saturday of 2013, Magnet Detectives, we showed them the cardboard + magnet trick, but we used pipe cleaners instead (much cheaper than mint boxes, especially at the last minute). Using the pipe cleaners, they created bugs and other critters and made them dance/move with the magnet.

Thanks Kiwi Crate for such a fun, learning activity!

Disclosure: Kiwi Crate sent me the Robot Rally crate as a sample crate. Opinions are my own.

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Edited 5/28/13: Kiwi Crate is offering friends and family discounts to Nerdy Science blog readers until June 3, 2013.

Edited 7/20/13: Deleted expired offers.