Friday, January 20, 2012

Basic Science Projects for Kids Ideas, Tips and Topics

Basic science projects for kids Simple Tips, Ideas and Topics.
Try A Little More Harder...

If you landed here from the first part of Science experiments, then I assure more fun ahead of you -- with easy Science models!

In this post, I have included some Science experiments to make Scientific models which require a little more effort from your behalf. The first part concentrated on doing simple experiments. This page concentrates on simple and fun Science experiments too which help you to make your own Science models but they take a little more time plus patience to carry them out.

Science experiments such as making your own telescope, making your own camera, and making your own periscope are included plus much more Science facts and educational videos. These Science models will help you in understanding scientific theories and facts in a more clear manner. Enjoy!

Hydro-electric Power         


1- Make Your Own Turbine

Electricity can be produced by a power station without burning coal, oil or nuclear fuel.

How?
Using a generator, a power station can turn the potential energy of water into kinetic energy and then convert this energy into electrical energy.This type of power station is called a hydro-electric power station.

These stations are usually found in areas surrounding mountains where there's plenty of rainfall. A huge lake of water is held back by a large dam, built across a river. Water is carried downhill to a water turbine through pipes. These water turbines are kind of water wheels that are connected to generators.


EXPERIMENT #1 - MAKE YOUR OWN TURBINE

In the following experiment, we are going to create a reaction turbine. In a reaction turbine, water flows out of jets fixed to a wheel. As the water squirts out, the wheel turns.
1. Scissors
2. A pencil
3. Two pieces of string, about 20 cm and 30 cm long
4. An empty plastic bottle


1. Cut the top off the plastic bottle to make a cylinder. Use your scissors to make about six to eight holes round the bottom of the cylinder.

2. Push a sharp pencil through each hole and twist the pencil to one side so that the hole is slanted. Make three small holes around the top of the cylinder.

3. Tie the short string to two of the holes of the cylinder top. Tie the long string to the third hole. Tie this to the middle of the short string but leave a long end free.



4. Hold your cylinder under the cold water tap and fill it with water. As the water flows out, it will come out sideways and push the cylinder round.


2- Light Telescopes

Make Your Own Telescope

Our eyes are good enough for simple stargazing. But they tell us very little about what the stars are really like. To see the stars more clearly and find out about them, we need to look through a telescope. The word telescope means 'see far', and that is just what a telescope enables us to do. The Italian scientist, Galileo Galilei, was the first person to look at the heaven through a telescope.

Galileo made his telescope using glass lenses. Some astronomers still use this type of telescope today. It is called a refractor, because the lenses refract or bend the light coming in. But the biggest and most powerful telescopes use mirrors to gather the sunlight. They are called reflectors, because the mirrors reflect the light coming in.


 XPERIMENT #2 - MAKING A TELESCOPE

Buy your lenses from an optician or hobby shop. Tell the assistant what you want them for. Ask for one with short focal length (A), the other with a long focal length (B).
1. Two lenses which bulge in the middle
2. Two cardboard tubes, one able to slide into the other
3. Sticky tape

1. Fit lens A into the end of the smaller tube and fix it in a position with sticky tape.

2. Fit lens B into the end of the larger tube and fix as you did it for lens A.

3. Slide one tube inside the other.

4. Look at the distant object and slide the smaller tube in and out until you get a sharp image. The telescope is now in focus. It will give you an upside-down image. But this doesn't matter if you are looking at the stars.



3- How To Build A Simpe Robot | Make Your Own Robot

Machines are often used for mass-production. They can carry out simple tasks swiftly and accurately. Machines which carry out physical tasks without human assistance, such as spraying paint, welding and simple assembly work, are called robots. The robot is first taken through each step of the task in simple movements. Each movement is stored in its computer. The computer can then put together the instructions for these movements, in order.

Robots do not get tired like human workers. And they can work in heat, fumes and noise that humans would find unpleasant or dangerous. Today, robots carry out many tasks which people can do.
EXPERIMENT #3 - HOW TO BUILD A SIMPLE ROBOT


This cardboard robot can pick up small objects with its specially designed arms.
1. Seven cotton reels or plastic tubs with lids
2. A small cardboard box
3. A hook or a magnet
4. Three knitting needles
5. Modelling clay
6. Cotton thread
7. Wire
8. Thick card
9. Sticky tape
10. Scissors
11. Corrugated cardboard


12. A cork
13. Paper fasteners


1. Slide a cotton reel onto each knitting needle. Push the needles through the base of the box. Place cotton reels on the ends of each needle and secure the ends with a lump of modelling clay.

2. To make a caterpillar track, cut two strips of corrugated cardboard. They should be long enough to wind over all three sets of wheels. Use sticky tape to join the ends of the track together.

AN ARM THAT STRETCHES


1. Cut six short strips from a thick sheet of card. The strips should be 18 centimetres long and 2 centimetres wide.

2. Lay the pieces of card out in a criss-cross pattern and join them together with paper fasteners. Use a large paper fastener to attach the arm at point "A" to the side of robot's body.

A PULLEY FOR LIFTING

1. Cut a hole in the back of the box, big enough to fit a cotton reel. Wind thread round a cotton reel, and tie a hook on the end.


2. Push the wire through one side of the box. Thread the cotton reel onto the wire. Push the wire out the other side.

3. Bend the wire to make a handle.

4. Push some wire through the cork. Bend the wire at either side to make 'legs', as shown. Push the legs through the front top of the box.


5. Pull the cotton over the cork, with the hook hanging down.
EXPERIMENTS WITH YOUR ROBOT

Collect as many objects as you can. How many of these objects can you pick up with your robot? What can you pick up with the pulley and hook? What can you pick up with the stretching arm? What would happen if you used a magnet instead of a hook?

 
                    
 4- The Wind Make Your Own Windmill

We cannot see the wind, or moving air, but we can feel it and see what it does. A strong wind can damage buildings and uproot trees, but it can also turn the sails of a windmill. So we can use the wind to help us.

The power produced by the spinning sails of a windmill turns millstones to grind corn. Many years ago, most corn was ground in this way. Today, windmills can be used to turn machines called generators. Generators produce electricity.
EXPERIMENT #4 - MAKE YOUR OWN WINDMILL
1. A pencil
2. A ruler
3. A piece of thin card, 10 cm x 10 cm
4. A pin
5. Scissors
6. A small bead
7. A stick, about 25 cm long

1. Draw two pencil lines, one from each corner of the card to the opposite corner. Make small pinholes in each corner, just beside the lines, and one hole in the centre where the lines cross.

2. Cut along each pencil line towards the centre. Cut halfway along each line.

3. Bend over each corner so that all four holes are on top of the centre hole. Push the pin through the holes.


4. Thread the bead onto the pin behind the windmill. Push the point of the pin firmly into the stick.

5. Now blow on your windmill. Which way does it turn? Does it work better if you blow from the front or from the side? What happens if you whirl it around in the air?
Switching On And Off



Make A Switch

A switch is a way of turning an electric current on and off. When a switch is turned off, the electric circuit is broken. No electric current can flow round the circuit. When a switch is turned on, the circuit is complete and the current can flow.



EXPERIMENT #5 - MAKING A SWITCH


You can make a simple switch to use in your experiments.

1. A small block of soft wood, about 8 cm x 4 cm x 1 cm
2. A paperclip
3. Two drawing pins
4. Three pieces of plastic-coated wire, about 25 cm long, with bare ends
5. A 4.5 volt bulb in a bulb holder



6. A 4.5 volt battery



7. A screwdriver



1. Attach a piece of wire to each drawing pin. Push one drawing pin into one of the flat sides of the wood. Push the second drawing pin through the end loop of a paperclip and into the wood. The drawing pins should be about one centimetre apart.

Make sure the clip is held in place by one pin but can still turn around and touch the other pin. This is the switch.

2. To test the switch, connect the free end of one of the wires to one side of the battery. Connect the third wire to the other side of the battery and to the bulb holder.

Connect the free wire on the switch to the free screw on the bulb holder.

When you turn the paperclip round so that it is touching both drawing pins, the bulb will light up. If you turn the paperclip away from the second drawing pin, the bulb will stop shining.


5- Invisible Changes

Can You Believe Your Eyes

If you look at sugar through a magnifying glass, you will see white or brown crystals of sugar. If you heat the sugar, it will melt and bubble. When it cools, a hard, glassy sweet is left. Many substances change into something new when they are heated. Other substances don't change at all when they are heated. Sand is not changed by the heat from an ordinary flame. Scientists can make sand melt, but they have to raise the temperature to over 1,500 degrees Celsius.

Some substances appear to stay the same when you heat them. Bicarbonate of soda is a white powder. When you heat it, it remains a white powder. From just looking at it, you would think that the bicarbonate of soda has not changed - but an invisible change has taken place.


EXPERIMENT #6 - CAN YOU BELIEVE YOUR EYES?

1. Bicarbonate of soda
2. Rice
3. Two empty matchboxes and a match
4. A drinking straw
5. Aluminium foil
6. A large needle


1. Use the drinking straw, the two empty matchboxes, the aluminium foil and the needle to make a balance as shown in the picture. Make sure the needle is half-way through the straw and that the aluminium foil pieces stay at roughly the same level.

2. Place about 25 grains of rice on one side of your balance and bicarbonate of soda on the other side. Make sure the two sides balance.

3. Now ask an adult to burn half the length of a match under the bicarbonate of soda. This will take about five seconds. Leave it to cool. You will notice that the balance begins to tip up.

At the start, the rice and the bicarbonate of soda were the same mass. After heating, the bicarbonate of soda looks just the same as it did at the beginning, but it weighs less. The rice is now heavier. So what happened? The bicarbonate of soda gives off an invisible gas, reducing the weight.
Make Your Own Camera         


6- How To Make Simple Pinhole Camera

Like eyes, cameras also make upside-down images. You can see how this works by making a pinhole camera.
EXPERIMENT #7 - MAKE YOUR OWN PINHOLE CAMERA

1. Scissors
2. Aluminium foil
3. Sticky tape
4. Tracing or other thin paper
5. A pin
6. A piece of dark cloth
7. Sticking plasters
8. A shoe box or similar long cardboard box

1. Cut off one end of the box and the lid. Cut a hole two centimetres by two centimetres in the middle of the other end.

2. Cut a square of aluminium foil to cover the hole. Stick it in place with the tape.

3. Check the lid and the corners of the box to make sure that they have no other holes. If there are any, cover them with sticking plaster.

4. Put the lid back on the box and fix it with sticky tape. Make sure no light can get in.

5. Fasten a piece of tracing paper over the open end of the box.

6. With a pin, make a tiny hole in the aluminium foil.

7. Throw a cloth over your head and look at the screen. Point the pinhole at a window. You will see a faint, upside-down image.




1 comment:

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