12-06-2016 09:05 AM
Gave a monthly subscription to one set of grandkids. Daughter found them and recommended them. The first one arrived, and daughter reports it is a hit.
12-11-2017 08:42 AM
Time for an update!
Olivia will soon be 9 so we have acquired a lot of laboratory glassware for the girls.
So chop up some red cabbage, and then douse it with boiling water and let it set for ten minutes. Strain out the juice and you have a very nice pH indicator.
It was a real hit with the girls and at the end Olivia is cheering for science!
Ben
12-11-2017 11:27 AM
I never owned one of these but I but my dad did as kid and he said he loved it. It is a miniature combustible engine. You build it and then a small motor turns the engine over and you see the parts and how they work. I'm not a mechanical engineer, and I'm never going to be one to take apart an engine, but being able to slow it down and see how the pieces work together looks fun.
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01-02-2018 03:03 PM
@Ben wrote:
Time for an update!
Olivia will soon be 9 so we have acquired a lot of laboratory glassware for the girls.
So chop up some red cabbage, and then douse it with boiling water and let it set for ten minutes. Strain out the juice and you have a very nice pH indicator.
It was a real hit with the girls and at the end Olivia is cheering for science!
Ben
it turns out there is more to the cabbage juice than I expected. We made some litmus paper from it and my youngest (4.5 years now) was properly identifying which beaker had the baking soda solution. There is something about the color change that get's there attention.
Ben
01-18-2018 07:55 AM - edited 01-18-2018 07:56 AM
Olivia has been working to get an understanding of Acid vs Base and we started to focus on how acids react with metals. She put a copper fitting in a beaker of vinegar and left it for a week. When she returned on Sunday she observed the solution was now a nice blue color. We discussed how the fitting was now shinny and that the copper was now dissolved in the solution.
She and her sister ( Eden now about 4.5 years) then extended the experiment and shined up some nails and placed them in the solution. They will be in for a surprise when they return to find the blue color is gone and there is precipitated copper on the nail and elsewhere.
Olivia was talking about what she understood and I think she is really getting it! But what makes a grampa happy is when the 4-1/2 year old shows up and asks;
"Can we do a periment Grampa?"
OK, I admit that chemistry is far from a toy but with supervision, I hope to give these two young ladies a head start for when they do get to chemistry class... in about 7-8 years from now.
Ben
02-05-2018 08:19 AM
I let the girls climb up into the loft of my garage yesterday to fetch a box of test tubes I had stashed up there. That augmented there laboratory glassware collection and let Olivia add another episode to her adventures in chemistry series.
We settled on breaking apart water after she drew-up a water molecules for me. I wrote out the chemical formula of the reaction and pointed it can run backwards as well as forward. Now if grampa had only anticipated the O2 and Cu reaction would inhibit collection O2.... may be a carbon electrode?
So if in question, get lab glassware for the kids. Hindenburg aside, what could go wrong?
Ben
02-05-2018 08:37 AM
I have that set somewhere in my house. It's probably in my youngest son's room as he's the only one that showed any interest in physics/electronics/software/engineering.
02-07-2018 02:06 AM
Do Computer games count?
In light of yesterday's Falcon Heavy launch, I can't recommend Kerbal Space Program enough.
It's suitable for a slightly older age group- I would guess starting at 12 with some guidance.
You start out blowing up some rockets, which is already great fun and before you know it you're exploring the outermost planets of your solar System, mining your own rocket fuel to get home. Now you can crank up the difficulty to +infty with mods.
02-07-2018 05:39 AM - edited 02-07-2018 05:44 AM
This site has a lot of platic 'glasware' , sorry seems to be german only, however for some inspiration?
I like the Luer system .. also great for little pneumatic experiments 😄
A lot of nice experiments (in german) are presented
On the other side: Working with real glasware trains experimenters skills 😉
I remember using carbon electrodes from 'old' batteries for my water 'breaking' experiments with success. ... and one spectacular reunification reaction.. had a well trained guardian angel at that time 😄
02-07-2018 07:11 AM
...and one spectacular reunification reaction..
Weren't there a lot of those around 28 years ago?
Yes, seems like a lot of us engineer/scientist types had a lot of experiences with forming dihydrogen monoxide 😉