Hands On Science Display/Sculpture Ideas
by Terry Leigh Britton
1. Tennis Ball Raceway
1.1. A raceway made of parallel rails permitting a “roller coaster” of tennis balls to be started by the user.
1.2. Visceral connection with the ball’s changes in motion and energy when encountering turns, hills and valleys, and final slow down section.
1.3. Made of rails separated by a snap-in device.
1.4. Cost: $200
1.5. Note: If tennis ball gets wet it will affect the operation.
1.6. Had a great marble raceway made by a japanese toy company (Bondai?) who made several construction toys.
2. Twirling Musical Hoses
3. Lever Demo/Bean Bag Toss
4. Bicycle Crank Color Mix Discs
5. Wagon Ride
6. Piggy Back Streams From a Tall Column
7. Giant Skyhook Balancer
8. Giant Mobile
9. Wand-on-a-wire Challenge
10. Giant Angled Mirrors
11. Cork and Jar Accelerometer
12. Bumping Balls Transmitter
13. Rubber Band Heat Engine
14. Pulley Demo
15. Giant Recorder
16. Plexiglas Telescope
17. Goosefeather Ferriswheel
18. Stream Down String
19. Giant Water Propelled Spinner
20. Strobe Viewer
21. Old Piano Singing Strings
22. Parabolic Sound Lenses
23. Springy Pendulum
24. Talking Mirrors Diaphragm
25. Specific Gravity Columns
26. Gyroscope Wheel
26.1. A gigantic gyroscope wheel
26.2. Very visceral experience of a gyroscope AND of a flywheel’s stored energy.
26.3. Made of a bicycle tire or larger.
26.4. Cost: Anywhere from $25 to hundreds, depending upon materials used.
26.5. People must not be able to get near the wheel.
26.6. My mom had us suspend a wheel from a spring scale once and spin it to see if centrifugal force caused a weight loss (thus a flying saucer idea dispelled) when we were 14 or so.
27. Giant Door Harp
28. Door Spring ‘Twanger’
29. Tunable String
30. Super 5-grade Sand Sifter
31. Giant Pinhole Camera
32. Giant Parachute Launcher
33. Bowl-Roll of Tennis Ball
34. Super Long String Telephone
35. Rain Detector w/Electrical Sign
36. Clear Plexiglas Pump
37. Colored Glass Viewers
38. Beat-Frequency Generator
39. Pup-Party
40. Giant Windmill Things
41. Vortex Launcher
42. Super Sand Remixer
43. Giant Periscope
44. Self-Starting Siphon
45. Black-Hole Orbiter
46. Gardenhose Speaking Tube
47. Handcranked Generator
48. Underwater Telephone
49. Water Tension Weight Set
50. Seashell Effect Tubes
51. Giant Bridge of Knives
