WELCOME TO SCIENCE TOY MAKER

Mysterious, Kinetic, Noisy, Do-It-Yourself Science Projects that Entice Scientific Investigation

You have found the non-commercial, teacher-created site for people who like to roll up their sleeves and make science toys and projects. You won't find slick, well-designed web pages here--more like the digital equivalent of a messy workshop. If you poke around though, you'll find good stuff. Science toy maker is a resource for inspired kids, parents, teachers, teenagers, home schoolers, science fair participants and citizen scientists everywhere.

All science toys and projects:

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Welcome Liberty Treehouse viewers! The original video of older kids helping younger kids is here (YouTube) or here (SchoolTube). Learn about Air Surfing here.

One of the most exciting things happening at sciencetoymaker is the exploration and development of air surfing, also known as walkalong flight. You can mysteriously levitate and fly gliders on a wave of deflected air. The problem has always been how to get people started. A breath-taking spinney glider called the tumbling wing has been good, and this new version might be even simpler to make and fly. If YouTube is blocked at your school, here is the SchoolTube equivalent. The pattern is here. The Big Mouth Tumblewing is made of common phone book paper or newsprint and takes only a minute to make. Learning to fly it will take longer, but once you get it you can jump into other exciting branches of walkalong flight.

NEW SCIENCE PROJECT for 2012! The Robot Voice Talk Box only costs pennies to make, it's fun and you'll see how we turn raw sound into speech with our vocal tract. If YouTube is blocked at your school, here's the Schooltube equivalent.

Our lungs force air past the vocal folds in our throat. A talk box replaces them with a balloon and a vibrating column of air respectively. We shape the sound--especially vowels--by changing the shape of our mouth. You can even replace the mouth with a cut-apart soda bottle.

Lots of cool, relaed links to vowel resonators, talk boxes, etc.

We had fun when a crew from Liberty Treehouse, a high-quality TV program for young people, visited my school. Host Raj Nair, Producer Christina Guastella and Camera/Sound/Editor and walking encyclopedia of cutting-edge video technology Jay Moreles gave my students a look into how a professional TV crew works together. Sciencetoymaker and Jersey Shore Middle School students will appear every Thursday on Liberty Treehouse. You can see a highlight from the first episode here (takes a bit of time to load). I have also enjoyed talking with Producer Sabina Ryman, though she couldn't make the trip this time.

Also, here are some videos about behind-the-scenes video production from when sciencetoymaker appeared on PBS.

 

SCIENCE TOYS ARE INTERNATIONAL! Click here to see which countries people have visited from. Over 160 different countries so far. Since the time of the Renaissance enthusiastic science has crossed national borders.

Updated: 1/15/12