Fun Homeschool Science Activity Making Homemade Slime and Silly Putty

In the homeschool science projects that I teach, I call this "The Science of Slime." You will experience the same slimy feeling that you experience while holding a fish or a squid. Eeks!

Here are some fun homeschool science activities that you can do at home.

Bouncy Gunk

Take half a cup of water and mix a teaspoonful of Borax (found at the laundry section of your grocery store) in it. Stir the mixture vigorously with a popsicle stick. Alternatively, you can put the mixture in a glass jar with a lid and shake, shake, shake. Once the borax dissolves, add some more till it no longer dissolves. Take another cup and mix glue and water in equal proportions.

Now add a globule of this glue mixture to the borax mixture. Stir with the popsicle stick and empty the contents on the palm of your hand. Roll the mixture on your hands till it gets drier and becomes bouncy. Now let it roll onto your table and see it bounce. Pick it up and squeeze it and watch it slither through your fingers.

You can add some food coloring of your choice while preparing the slime for added effect. Involve your friends in your homeschool science activities. Place the slime in the hand of another friend who does not know what you are holding. YUCK!

Starchy Goop

Take a paper cup and add a tablespoon of liquid starch (found at the laundry section of your grocery store) to it. Add a globule of glue mixture (same as the above) to it and stir with a popsicle stick. Empty the contents on the palm of your hand and roll it from hand to hand until it gets drier. What is the difference between this and the Bouncy Gunk?

Corny Glop

Take a cup of cornstarch in a bowl. Slowly add cold water and begin mixing with your fingers. If it is too runny, mix another cup of cornstarch and mix gently with your fingers. It must not be too dry and not too wet. Now you can do different things with it. Take in on the palm of your hand and squeeze it. Cut it with a pair of scissors. Pat it with a ladle. Throw it up in the air and see how it behaves before you catch it. Have fun!

When you are not playing with your homemade slime, you can place it in a plastic zip-lock bag. Slime collects dust and dirt, and therefore remember to discard the slime when it gets dirty.

In today's homeschool science activity, you have learned about substances called polymers. Jelly, rubber bands and gum are all different types of polymers. Some polymers act as solids and we can hold them in our hands. At the same time they take the shape of the containers they are placed in, thus behaving as liquids do. Polymers that are harder are also used in parts of cell phones, spectacles and other household articles.

Do some research and find out various things made up of polymers. Learn about the molecular structure of polymers.

For your free "Homeschool Parent's Guide to Teaching Science", filled with great science experiments and activities, visit the link below.

A great free resource for really cool science experiments and activities is the Homeschool Science Experiment Guide.

Another good homeschool resource for science ideas, experiments and activities, is the homeschool science blog (just click on the Blog link). Definitely worth bookmarking.

Have Fun!

About the Author
Aurora Lipper has been teaching science to kids for over 10 years. She is also a mechanical engineer, university instructor, pilot, astronomer, a real live rocket scientist (You should see the lab in her basement!) and a mom. She has inspired thousands of kids with the fun and magic of science.

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Make Homemade Playdough Circuits

You’re never too young (or too old) to start learning the joys of electronics. You don’t need to know how to solder, or even how to plug circuit components into a breadboard. As long as you’re past the “I’m going to stick this up my nose” phase, this homemade playdough circuit project is a great way to introduce kiddos and adults alike to basic circuits and electricity.

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Water Flour Salt Cream of Tartar Vegetable Oil Sugar Alum Distilled Water Food Coloring LEDs A DC power supply, like four AA or AAA batteries encased in a pack with added terminals

You didn’t think we were using regular old store-bought Play-Doh did you? We’ve got to mix our own dough, and we need two kinds: conductive and insulating. Distilled water and sugar keep the insulating dough’s resistivity high, preventing electrons from flowing through, while salt and cream of tartar keep the conductive dough... well, electrically conductive. While you’re mixing, add food coloring to each batch so you can tell the difference between the two.

To make the insulating dough, mix 1 ½ cups of flour, ½ cup of sugar, 3 tbsp. of vegetable oil, ½ cup of distilled water, and 1 tsp alum (as a preservative) in a medium size pot or bowl. Stir it until it until it starts getting a doughy consistency, adding a little distilled water if your mixture is too dry, or extra flour if it’s too moist. Coat a flat surface with some flour and knead your dough into a ball.

For the conductive dough, mix 1 ½ cups of flour, ¼ cup salt, 1 tbsp of vegetable oil, 1 cup of water (tap is fine), and 3 tbsp cream of tartar, in a medium size pot. Heat it over medium heat, stirring constantly. It will start to dry out and thicken into a mound of dough as you continue to stir. Carefully remove the dough (it’s hot!) onto a flat, floured surface, rolling it out so it can cool faster. Once it’s cooled, you can knead it into a ball.

Now comes the fun part. Pinch off two pieces of conductive dough, rolling each into a ball. Pinch off one piece of insulating dough and roll it into a ball, then sandwich it between the two conductive pieces. Plug the power supply terminals into each conductive piece, with an LED connecting the two. Switch on the power supply to see the LED light up.

NOTE: The conductive dough is resistive enough that you shouldn’t need to add resistors to your circuits to reduce the voltage across the LED.

In a parallel circuit, the current is split among multiple paths, rather than a single path. You can use the same setup from our Basic LED Circuit, but now stick multiple LEDs across the insulating dough. They should all light up, but as you add more, you may notice they all shine equally dimmer as less electrical current flows through the LEDs.

A series circuit will end up looking a bit like a caterpillar, with alternating pieces of conductive and insulating dough chained together, capped on either end with a conductive piece. Chain multiple LEDs through the conductive dough, and you’ll notice the ones at the end are far dimmer than the first few. That’s because less current is making its way down the series; the current only has one path, and that’s through each LED.

Make sure, when you’re wiring up your circuits, that the long end of the LED is directed towards the positive side of the power supply. You’ll also want to wipe off your components and ledes when you’re done — since the conductive dough is salt based, it’s corrosive.

Tired of LEDs? Trying hooking up a motor, a buzzer, or any other electrical component you’d like with your playdough. Just be sure your power supply has enough voltage to juice it!

Squishy Circuits

Sculpting Circuits

Making Conductive Dough

Making Insulating Dough

Other Circuits

Original article by Christina Bonnington. Video and photos by Michael Lennon.

This page was last modified 00:15, 8 July 2011 by howto_admin.

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Build Homemade Cell Phone Jammer

Not so long ago I was in a deep search for quality instructions about how to make this thing. It took a lot of time and no real results were found. But I did not stopped my searches and at last found what I have looked for, and all this thanks to guys from manufacturing team of Jammer Store Inc.

Their blog post with nice explanations and many pictures and schemes is just awesome! After reading it many things about making signal jammer and how it operates were clean to me as never before. So I used my new knowledge and managed to build my own mobile phone jammer.

Have a look at it and maybe you will build your own too.

Technical Details

Many cell phones use GSM800 mobile standard to operate, thus my VCO (sweeping oscillator) is tuned to the 800MHz frequency range. It may be quite difficult to make this one to work properly without some skills and good testing tools, but in result you will have the efficient VCO.

I used clock oscillator for 45MHz as the noise generator for this jammer. It drives the local oscillator port which is located at the mixer. The signal is going out from the local oscillator and passes through the impedance matching network along its way. This helps equate the impedance of 45MHz clock oscillator with the impedance of the mixer's port.

This port acts like RF input of the signal jammer. The RF output signal passes through the amplifier on the mini-circuit. The output power is increased by additional 15-16dbm in this way. Then the output signal goes to the RF output antenna. RF input has the antenna too.

Jammer Operating

Why I chose 45MHz clock oscillator? Because GSM800 band transmitted and received signals are always separated by the exact number of frequency and it is that 45MHz. Now picture this: cell phone user dial someone and signal goes off. RF input antenna catches it and jammer modifies this signal and lets it go. This signal have a frequency of cell phone's received signal, so cell phone user would hear his or her own voice in a phone! :)

I should also mention that this particular cell phone jammer might be used to block the signal of the cell-based car tracking device which records your GPS data and sends it to some bad guys. And it probably can even jam some IED signals if they are controlled by cell phone GSM800 band.

But I hope that there be no situation in this life when that feature will be needed by me, or you, or anyone else.

Photos And Some Notes

Used mixer was originally made for 600MHz but I modified it a little and it works perfectly for 800MHz.

The amplifier makes fantastic thing with output power. Despite it draws additional power supply, it is worth it.

Jammer case was made from old aluminium box and UHF connectors I took from my old Motorola phone.

Those connectors must be soldered to the mini-circuit to work properly.

To supply this little signal jammer the nine volts battery with voltage regulator is enough. I have separated it from other electronic components with foam plastic.

Don't forget to make a power switch for your new creation. Oh, and attach antennas to the UHF connectors.

So it is ready! Use it wisely ;)

Jammer Scheme

This page was last modified 09:20, 8 July 2011 by beargrills.

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