Squishy-Circuits
After watching a TED talk on Squishy-Circuits, I knew I had to try making them with my kids. Well, we got our chance!
I’d made the kids some regular salt dough to play with, and then thought that it would be a great chance to try out the squishy-circuits—we had friends over to play, the baby was napping, and my Hubby had recently shown me where he kept the electronicy thingys.
Yes, “Electronicy Thingys.”
Like these:
…and these…
…I got a glimpse into how my hubby probably feels looking into my gardening shed. Lots of…things. Some sort of recognizable (ooh look, batteries! I know what batteries are!). And some not (hmmm, lots of little black things that look like centipedes with metal legs. And other pokey metal stuff. With cryptic notes accompanying their compartment.)
I put batteries in a thing that looked like it was meant to hold batteries and plugged it into our play-doh, a mix of disbelief and hope coursing through me as I tried to make this work:
It worked! Twitchy, but the light definitely blinked dimly a few times.
I was dubious of the battery set up I’d created. Besides, I’d spied another battery connector I was more familiar with from my days of grade 9 science class, so I switched the batteries around:
Much better. Couldn’t tell you why exactly though. Maybe a stronger battery? Better connections? Better ease of use? Whatever, it worked!
We squished in some resistor dough:
…still working!
We made cutesy animals for a bit. I tried to make the pig circuit from the squishy circuit page, but I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around it.
And I was starting to lose their interest — they weren’t too impressed with being repeatedly told, “Don’t touch it yet, I think I’ve almost got it.” (yes, this activity would have gone more smoothly with more pre-planning and learning on my part, but sometimes you just have to roll with it).
So, I asked them what they wanted to make.
Why, teenage mutant ninja turtles of course! (No, my sons have no idea who the teenage mutant ninja turtles are. This is a failing on my part. Thankfully, the little girl who’d come over to play was able to educate them in this very important topic—teenage mutant ninja turtles are her favourite!)
She told me what the turtle should look like:
And we tried lighting him up in different ways, including a light up belt. We finally settled on some glowing green goo for him to hold:
Giant tried his hand at building a turtle too:
With light up…swords?
Mommy made an octopus with light up eyes (the pig still eluded me):
And Ettin made a very interesting creation. He was so proud. I was dubious. The disconcerting thing was that the one led that did light up pulsed. Repeatedly. Rather like a heart beat.
…It’s alive!!!