Stop for a minute and try to imagine your world without electrical power and electronic gadgets. No convenient appliances in the kitchen, no electric lights. No computers, MP3 players, television, or video games. Your life would be completely different, wouldn't it? Electricity and electronics are so central to modern life that, paradoxically, they're easy to overlook. Stop overlooking them now and try a hand at one of our projects to explore the science of how electricity works or build a cool electronics gadget.
Do you like playing with play dough; or modeling clay? Wouldn't it be cool if you could add lights, sound, or even motion to your play dough creations? In this project, you will use play dough that conducts electricity, which will allow you to connect lights to your sculptures!
This project is the first in a three-part series on play dough circuits, which can all be done with the same materials. We recommend doing the projects in order.
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Elec_p073
+ More Details
- Less Details
Time Required
Very Short (≤ 1 day)
Prerequisites
None
Material Availability
Kit available for purchase from our partner
.
See Materials tab for details.
Cost
Low ($20 - $50)
Safety
Never connect the battery pack's terminals directly to each other; this is called a short circuit and can make the batteries and wires get very hot. Do not connect the LEDs directly to the battery pack without using play dough; this will burn out the LEDs.
A tried and true balloon activity is to rub a balloon on your head to make your hair stand up. How does the rubbing build up static electricity? Do this experiment to see if the number of rubs makes a difference.
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Electricity powers many of the devices we use every day, from lights to video games and computers. Engineers have to use certain materials to make electrical devices work. In this experiment, you will find out which materials let electricity flow through them (conductors) and which ones prevent electricity from flowing through them (insulators).
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Elec_p018
+ More Details
- Less Details
Time Required
Very Short (≤ 1 day)
Prerequisites
None
Material Availability
A kit for this project is available from our partner .
Cost
Low ($20 - $50)
Safety
Short circuits can get very hot and present a burn hazard. Never connect the positive and negative ends (red and black wires) of the battery pack directly to each other.
Did you know that not all trains run on tracks? Some of the world's fastest trains are magnetic levitation trains (maglev). This means that the carriage of the train is suspended over the rails with no support, but only with magnetic fields! There is a physical explanation for magnetic levitation, and if you would like to learn more about magnetism and current, this is a science fair project that you must try!
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Have you tried our first electric play dough project,
and now you are looking for more to do? Do you want to learn more about circuits and add even more lights? Check out this project for part 2 of our play dough circuits series!
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Elec_p074
+ More Details
- Less Details
Time Required
Very Short (≤ 1 day)
Prerequisites
You should understand the Introduction material in
[# ProjectIdea Name="Elec_p073" Value="HtmlAnchor" HtmlText="Light Up Your Play Dough!" HtmlHash="background" #]—the
first project in this series—before doing this project.
Material Availability
Kit available for purchase from our partner
.
See Materials tab for details.
Cost
Low ($20 - $50)
Safety
Never connect the battery pack's terminals directly to each other; this is called a short circuit and can make the batteries and wires get very hot. Do not connect the LEDs directly to the battery pack without using play dough; this will burn out the LEDs.
What do you do with your old wooden pencils when they get too short to hold? Don't throw them away; you can use them to make circuits! This project will show you how to use pencils to make resistors, an important part of many electrical circuits, and test how they affect the brightness of a lightbulb in a simple circuit.
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Elec_p013
+ More Details
- Less Details
Time Required
Very Short (≤ 1 day)
Prerequisites
None
Material Availability
A kit for this project is available from our partner .
Cost
Low ($20 - $50)
Safety
Short circuits can get very hot and present a burn hazard. Never connect the positive and negative ends (red and black wires) of the battery pack directly to each other. Adult supervision is required for cutting the pencils.
You've seen that a magnet's attractive force can cause a small object (like a paper clip) to "jump" to the magnet. So a magnetic field can act through the air, but what about other materials? Here's an experiment you can do to find out. You'll need a strong bar magnet, a stack of books, a paper clip, some thread and tape. Place the bar magnet underneath the top book in your stack, so that it sticks out. Tie a piece of thread (as long as the stack of books is high) to a paper clip. You…
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Dimmer switches let us control the brightness of a light, anywhere from completely off to full brightness. This can be nice when you want to set the brightness "just right," as opposed to a regular light switch that only lets you turn a light on or off. It turns out that you can make a dimmer switch out of an everyday object—a pencil! Try this project to find out how a dimmer switch can control the brightness of a light.
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Elec_p056
+ More Details
- Less Details
Time Required
Very Short (≤ 1 day)
Prerequisites
None
Material Availability
A kit for this project is available from our partner .
Cost
Low ($20 - $50)
Safety
Short circuits can get very hot and present a burn hazard. Never connect the positive and negative ends (red and black wires) of the battery pack directly to each other. Adult supervision is required for whittling the pencil.
This is a straightforward project that shows you how data can be digitized and stored on magnetic recording media. You'll learn how alpha-numeric characters are digitized, and you'll use bar magnets to represent the individual data "bits." You'll also learn about how much information can be stored in a small space (recording density), and how magnetic data can be erased.
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Elec_p026
+ More Details
- Less Details
Time Required
Very Short (≤ 1 day)
Prerequisites
None
Material Availability
A large number of specialty magnets are needed for this project.
Have you tried our first and second play dough circuits projects? Are you a master circuit artist, ready to try something even bigger and better? Try this project to see if you can build a three-dimensional light-up sculpture.
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Elec_p075
+ More Details
- Less Details
Time Required
Very Short (≤ 1 day)
Prerequisites
This project requires understanding the Introduction material in the first projects in this series:
[# ProjectIdea Name="Elec_p073" Value="HtmlAnchor" HtmlText="Light Up Your Play Dough!" #] and
[# ProjectIdea Name="Elec_p074" Value="HtmlAnchor" HtmlText="Add Even More Lights" #]
Material Availability
Kit available for purchase from our partner
.
See Materials tab for details.
Cost
Low ($20 - $50)
Safety
Never connect the battery pack's terminals directly to each other; this is called a short circuit and can make the batteries and wires get very hot. Do not connect the LEDs directly to the battery pack without using play dough; this will burn out the LEDs.
