Store up an electric charge, then make sparks. Tired of electrostatic experiments that just won’t work? This experiment will produce a spark that you can feel, see, and hear. Rub a foam plate with ...

The pneumatic tire and the chain drive, followed by the development of gears, revolutionized bicycling in the later 1800s. In the last fifteen years, there has been a revolution of sorts in the ...

Make a simple mini-motor. A coil of wire becomes an electromagnet when current passes through it. The electromagnet interacts with a permanent magnet, causing the coil to spin. Voilà! You’ve created ...

Create your own personal sound system with a coat hanger and string. Create your own personal sound system with a coat hanger and a string, producing musical sounds that only you can hear Cut two ...

A colored object may look different against different-colored backgrounds. In this investigation, you'll discover how colors seem to change when you place them against different-colored backgrounds.

When we think about objects that respond to magnets, fruit usually doesn't come to mind. Watch a rare-earth magnet repel a grape and discover different kinds of magnetism. A note on magnets: Only ...

You’ve probably seen an ice skater spinning on the tip of one skate suddenly start to spin dramatically faster. A diver or gymnast may also suddenly flip or twist much faster. This speeded-up rotation ...

The distribution of the mass of an object determines the position of its center of gravity, its angular momentum, and your ability to balance it. Place a lump of clay about the size of your fist ...

Make a truth teller for light. Turn an old CD into a spectroscope to analyze light—you may be surprised by what you see. Try pointing your CD spectroscope at the fluorescent light in your room, sunlit ...

Make waves without getting wet. With just a Slinky and your hands, model transverse wave resonances as well as longitudinal wave resonances. Learn about nodes and antinodes of motion and compression.

Throw one hundred coins, remove all those that come up tails, place them in a pile, repeat—you've got yourself a hands-on model for radioactive decay. The piles graphically show the meaning of the ...

Current flowing through a wire heats the wire. The length of a wire affects its resistance, which determines how much current flows in the wire and how hot the wire gets. Note: Electricity can really ...