Saturday, May 10, 2014

Family SciNight - Hydraulics

Last night was our final Family SciNight at John Muir CSW, 4th & 5th grade students and their parents came to the workshop and engineered their own hydraulic machines out of syringes, tubing, wood, pegboard, cardboard, pipe cleaners, tp & pt rolls, masking tape, markers & hot glue.
Among the finished projects were a jack-in-the-box clown that had a two part system in place, the first hydraulic system opened the front of the box revealing the clown and the second system pushed the clown's hat up taller. One of the makers said "man, that was hard work!". We also had a magnetic crane that was operated by a hydraulic arm, a spectacular bridge (I say spectacular because this kid copied my draw bridge example but made it so much more precise and efficient and just plain cooler - hence earning the choice adjective.) We had a three part rocket that launched and grew taller from it's base, as well as an existing craft stick bridge that was hacked by it's builder and our New Leaf intern with a four part hydraulic system so that it can now lift up.
Thank you Daniel for volunteering your time!! And of course thanks to Jessica Conkle and John Muir PTA for supporting our Family SciNights. Overall, I really enjoyed the intimate setting of sitting around with kids and their parents and our interns in the Workshop just tinkering and being creative together.

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