When it comes to electronics, soldering is essential. You can only go so far until you have mastered learned how to solder at lease little. More essential than a screw driver, is the soldering iron. Remember: If it smells like chicken, you’re holding it wrong.
No wrong way to hold a soldering iron (unless it smells like chicken)
Two different ways to solder
Father and son solder together
Ben’s improved soldering station that doesn’t involve kids (or adults!) grabbing the wrong part of the soldering iron.
There is nothing quite like handing kids a jigsaw and a large sheet a plywood. But less than an hour later, with all fingers in tack, they were racing around on their very own hoverboard. Powered by a cheap electric leaf blower, the hoverboard would slide along smooth concrete surface of the warehouse with almost not friction. It’s a super easy project requiring very few special tools, and not a lot of time.
It helps to know what a Newtonian fluid is before you start thinking about non-Newtonian fluids. Conveniently, just about every fluid you can think of is Newtonian. When you push on a fluid, it moves out of the way. Some move fast, some move slow (this is quantified as viscosity), but when a fluid seizes up and stops,,when it becomes like a solid in response… That goes against Newton!
Non-Newtowning fluids are better with food coloring
Perhaps the most common non Newtonian fluid people run across [foreshadowing] is cornstarch and water. It’s used to thicken gravy and other sauces (because of viscosity). But when making gravy, you are cautioned to mix the corn starch in cold water first and then add that to your hot liquid that needs to be thickened to avoid clumps. This is because the corn starch on the outside will mix with water first and be agitated (pressed on) by the hot liquid and turn solid, preventing even distribution of the inner cornstarch. But if you mix it with child water first all of the corn starch will be able to mix with the hot water.
A hands-on experience
So we mixed it 50lbs bag of corn starch with water, and learned that if you put water into cornstarch it will mix on the surface, and further attempts to mix in more water will cause the outer cornstarch solution to turn solid. Preventing further mixing…. Much like cornstarch dumped directly into hot water. The right way to mix large batches is to add the corn starch slowly into water until the desired thickness is achieved.
You can then put that on a speaker and play a time of just the right frequency to see the corn starch turn solid, be thrown in the air and turn liquid again on the way down
Or you can jump in a big tub of it and see if you can start running before you begin to sink. It’s harder than it looks.
Or you can cut to the chase and just build a trough that you can run across… Or stop and sink into.
Making liquid dance on a speaker is pretty cool, and visually memorizing, but hands on (or feet in) is really the best way to experience and believe in the properties of Non Newtonian fluids.
No matter what you do though, make sure you leave lots of time for cleanup.
We travelled to Clemson for the total solar eclipse. We threw a few simple, random building materials I the car as we we’re heading out. And when we got there we had a little bit of time… So we made a cereal box viewer, sans the cereal box… And way better. Josh gave lots of demos and explained how it worked and some of the more interesting properties. So much so that we were interviewed for and included in a book!
One of the neat things about the book was that Marie Harris, one of our favorite librarians from “The Loft” (a cool teen only space at Imaginon – the Children’s Library) in Charlotte – send me an email after she read the book. We’re quoted talking about Baily’s Beads which was truly the most amazing thing that I got to see being in totality.
We’ve made a few compressed air rocket launchers through the years
When it comes to making your own launcher, it’s hard for me to do much better than the Instructable I put together a few years back.
If on the other hand you are looking to make rockets, fast and furious, check on my video on YouTube is the place to be. There is also another video where I make a high pressure rocket in about 2 minutes.
We’ve made a few compressed air rocket launchers through the years
Brian’s Science Fair display – not your typical tri-fold
After a great day of rugby, all the kids got medals
East Cobb Rugby has a clinic
Isabel moves in for the tackle with her team in support
Brian makes a tackle a the the Life University summer rugby camp.
Is it really rugby if it’s not raining?
Brian on the girls team?! Coed teenage tackle? As a parent aren’t I supposed to prevent such things?
Nothing like a little rugby at East Cobb Park
Joshua is on his own and up against fierce opposition
Brian makes three great tackles in a row while injured.
Brian (gray sleeves, red socks) is injured at the start of this play (on the ground protecting his head). He’s trying to get get subbed off the field… but the play comes his way. So he does the only thing he can think to do – he makes the tackle. And then he does it again and again. The play finally moves away from him and he can limp away… but he keeps checking to make sure his team doesn’t need him. Fortunately his injuries were temporary and he was able to rejoin the game after a short break.
Brian in hot pursuit from a lineout on the far side of the pitch.
Soldering is often a challenge when you only have two hands. Having another person offer a third hand usually just results in someone getting burned. Ben decided to not only flip the solution (a third hand to poorly hold the object) and have the soldering iron held stationary. This solution worked great but for all the parts and setup it needed to scale to be useful. Hence the multi station solder… station. Complete with lights and fume extractor.
But you don’t always need a soldering station for a group of people. Sometimes you just need a soldering station that can hold the soldering iron for you.
Ben’s improved soldering station that doesn’t involve kids (or adults!) grabbing the wrong part of the soldering iron.
