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Water squirters work by pressurizing reservoirs of water with air. As you pump the squirter, it gradually adds air to the reservoir, increasing the pressure. When you pull the trigger, the pressure is allowed to release and a stream of water shoots out! In this DIY project, we'll learn how to use the exact sample principles found in water squirters to launch a water rocket sky-high! Follow along with these simple steps and you'll be blasting off in no time.&nbsp;Want to make a bottle rocket without the hassle of gathering materials? Blast off with a <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/dp/bottle-rocket-blaster/6489" target="_self">Bottle Rocket Blaster</a> crate from the <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/store" target="_self">KiwiCo Store</a>! It includes a step-by-step video tutorial link, illustrated instructions, and all the materials you'll need!&nbsp;

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Drill a small hole through the center of your cork stopper. The hole should be just smaller than the diameter of your pump needle.

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 Wrap your cork in electrical tape until it fits snugly in the bottle opening.

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 Press your pump needle through the hole in the cork. Make sure the thicker end of the cork is pressed on first. 

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Use a small piece of clay to seal the cork around the pump needle. Make sure you don't clog the needle opening. 

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If you'd like, create rocket fins and a nose cone out of scrap plastic or coated paper. Color them with a marker to give your rocket some extra pizzazz! 

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In preparation for launch, fill your bottle part-way with water. Grab a friend and find a wide open space to launch your rocket. Have your friend press the cork into the bottle and flip it so the nose cone is pointing upwards and away from you. The bottle should gently rest in one hand and the pump should be firmly held in the other. When your friend and rocket are ready, start pumping! The pressure will start to build and after a few seconds, your rocket will blast off into the air!

What’s going on?
 The pressure bottle rocket works thanks to Newton’s third law of motion, which states that for every action, there is a reaction. As you pump up your rocket with air, pressure builds up inside. Eventually, this pressure pushes the rocket off of the cork and bicycle pump, and expels the water in the bottle downward — this is the action. The reaction to this downward movement of the water is the rocket’s own upwards movement, sending it high into the sky.&nbsp;

The world record for the greatest altitude achieved by a pressure bottle rocket (using only water and air) is 2,723 ft (830m) - which is just over half a mile! It may be simple, but the pressure bottle rocket is quite effective, and it is the basis for the design of rockets that are launched into outer space.

cork stopper

1 liter bottle (empty)

clay

electrical tape

water

drill

bike or ball pump

scrap plastic bottles or sheets (optional)

permanent marker (optional)

Pressure Bottle Rocket

magnets

electronics

battery

motion

Use the power of electromagnetism to create your own spinning sculpture!&nbsp;&nbsp;Discover more ways electricity can make things move with a <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/dp/delivery-bot/6188" target="_self">Delivery Bot</a> from the <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store" target="_self">KiwiCo Store</a>! Wire up the motors, assemble a radio controller from scratch, then load your bot with a snack and send it rolling.

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Stack your battery on top of your neodymium magnets with the flat side of the battery on the magnets.

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Cut a piece of magnet
wire about&nbsp;30 cm in length. Then&nbsp;bend the wire in half
to make a “V.” Keeping the very bottom of the "V" in place,&nbsp;mold&nbsp;the wire into a rectangle. The sides should be about 5 cm.&nbsp;

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Check to make sure the wire rectangle fits around the batter. You might need to adjust the&nbsp;the
wire so that
one end touches the
magnets at the bottom. Cut the wire as needed!

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Balance the "V" in the wire&nbsp;on top of the battery and see if it spins!&nbsp;

Getting the wire to
balance can take a few
tries—keep at it!

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Show off your spinning sculptures!

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Decorate! Make decorations for your spinning sculpture. Symmetrical decorations work best.

Don’t forget to
disconnect the wire.
The battery and wire
can get hot!

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These spinning sculptures are an example of homopolar motors. Homopolar motors are a type of motor that is powered by something called a Lorentz Force. 
The Lorentz Force occurs when an electric force (the electricity running through the copper wire) meets a magnetic force (the magnets). The collision of these two forces causes your sculpture to spin!
Watch <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/diy/videos/how-to-make-a-spinning-homopolar-motor-sculpture" target="_blank">this video</a> to learn more.&nbsp;

Wiggle Eye Set

Double-Sided Sticky Foam Set

AA Battery

Neodymium Magnets

Copper Wire

Paper

Markers

Spinning Sculptures

engineering

train

transportation

STEM

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Take one end of the copper wire and tape it to the dowel. Begin winding the copper into a coil, making sure the coils are as tightly packed as possible but do not overlap.

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Keep winding until you have created a coil that's at least 5 inches long.

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Remove the coil from the dowel, and stretch it out just enough so that each winding on the coil doesn't touch the one next to it.  

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Make two stacks of 3 neodymium magnets. Orient the stacks so they repel each other, and stick one stack to each side of the battery.&nbsp;

This project won't work with regular magnets like you'd use on a noteboard. We ordered these online.

Be very careful with these magnets and keep them away from small children! They can be very dangerous if swallowed.

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Slide your train into the copper coil. It should zip down the coil and out the other side! If your train doesn't move, try flipping the train around. If it still doesn't work, try flipping one of the stacks of batteries around.Experiment by adding or subtracting the number of magnets, or making a longer coil. With a long enough copper coil, you'll be able to make a circle that the train zips around continuously!What's going on?Try this. Grab a couple of fridge magnets and flip them so they repel each other. If you place one on a table and bring the other one close, the magnet on the table will slide away. That same magnetic push is what moves your train!How? Well, placing the battery inside the coil of wire creates an electrical circuit. (In fact, it creates a short circuit, which is why the battery burns out so quickly in this experiment.)And here's the part where the connection between electricity and magnetism becomes important. An electric current creates a magnetic field. In fact, a coil of wire like you made here creates a magnetic field very similar to the magnetic field of a plain old bar magnet. Now, the neodymium magnets have their own magnetic field, and they're sitting right in the middle of the wire's magnetic field. And just like a couple of fridge magnets, those magnetic fields interact with each other. That's where the push that propels your train comes from. The neodymium magnets get pushed along by the magnetic field of the coil of wire. 

20 Gauge Copper Wire

aaa battery

6 neodymium (12 mm diameter)

wooden dowels (1/2 inch diameter)

Tape

Electromagnetic Train

pulley

at-home learning

learning activity

This setup is a compound pulley, which combine both fixed and moveable pulleys to increase the mechanical advantage. In a pulley system, a wheel's job is to let the rope move freely. Here, this set up works with no wheels. The broom can act as the wheel since it's low-friction enough that the rope can easily move over it.

Set the broom between two chairs or tables and place the jug underneath.

Thread the rope through the jug handle, then bring it over the broom.

Pull down on the rope to lift the jug. How hard do you have to pull?

Then bring the rope through the jug handle and over the broom one more time. How hard do you have to pull to lift the jug now?

broom or large dowel

rope

large jug (a laundry detergent bottle works well)

Compound Pulley

experiment

science experiment

food experiments

sound science

music

indoor project

Discover how music creates vibrations you can see using salt and a portable speaker! Then try experimenting with different genres of music to see which ones make the salt dance more. What's going on? Speakers, like your Bluetooth speaker, produce sound by creating vibrations in the air. Normally, we only hear these vibrations, and we can't easily see them. Plastic wrap, though, is lightweight and thin enough to vibrate in response to the sounds coming from the speakers. These vibrations move through the plastic wrap unevenly, pushing and shoving the salt around in interesting patterns. As a song progresses, these vibrations change, and the salt moves as if it were dancing. If you can find a YouTube video of a pure tone (like a single, sustained note), observe what happens to the salt when you play that tone through the speakers. A pure tone will create a consistent, unchanging vibration in the plastic wrap. Instead of dancing around, the salt should collect in places in the plastic wrap that aren't vibrating, making patterns that depend on the frequency of the pure tone. Try a few other pure tones, one at a time, to see some other interesting patterns!

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With the speaker facing up, tape six popsicle sticks around the outside of the speaker. 

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Cut a piece of plastic wrap large enough to cover and stretch tightly over the top of the popsicle sticks and secure with a rubber band.  

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Sprinkle salt onto the plastic wrap. Then, connect the speaker to the cell phone, play a song, and watch the salt move to the music! Troubleshooting: If the salt isn’t moving, first try increasing the volume. If it still isn’t moving, try moving the plastic wrap closer to the speaker by shortening the distance between the top of the popsicle sticks and the speaker. Optional: To see the salt more clearly, try dyeing it with food coloring! Simply combine salt and one or two drops of food coloring in a sandwich bag and shake the bag until fully mixed.

speaker (bluetooth)

cell phone

popsicle stick (6)

tape

plastic wrap

rubber band

salt

food coloring (optional)

Dancing Salt

recycled craft materials

KiwiCo crate box

Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day crafts

toy design

animals

game

Use weighted popsicle sticks and rubber bands to create your own version of a classic arcade game, then challenge a friend to play!Download the printable <a href="http://images.kiwicrate.com/diy_ad/Kiwi-Co-Whack-A-Groundhog-Printable.pdf">here</a>.

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Cut out the objects on the printable. Then, set the groundhog cards aside and glue the gameboard to the top of the crate box. 

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Use the lip of the cup to trace a circle in the middle of each of the holes. 

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Cut out the circles on the top of the box with an X-acto knife. You will need a grownup assistant to help you. 

Cut slightly inside the marked circle so that when you place a cup into the hole it doesn’t fall through.

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 Cut a rectangle into one of the sides of a dixie cup. Do this to six cups. 

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Place the six cups into the holes on the top of the box. Then, glue them in place so that the holes you cut into the cups face the long sides of the box. 

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On the long sides of the crate, use a skewer to make holes that line up with the center of each of the cups and is about half inch from the top of the crate. 

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Widen these holes just enough so that a popsicle stick fits through them. 

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Glue quarters to the ends of the popsicle sticks. Let them dry. 

Slide the popsicle sticks into the holes on the side of the box as pictured. Then, double wrap rubber bands on both sides of the popsicle stick. 

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Push the rubber bands towards the middle of the popsicle stick so that they “hug” the side of the box. This will help keep the popsicle stick from sliding forward and backward when playing! 

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Glue the groundhog cards to either side of the clothespins. 

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Clip the clothespins onto the ends of the popsicle sticks in the cup. 

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Glue two cups together, sandwiching the pointy end of the skewer in between them. This will be your mallet. 

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Wrap yarn around the mallet until it is completely covered. 

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Play with your whack-a-mole! The quarters serve as weights to keep your groundhogs popping up even after you whack ‘em down. 

83 easy physics projects for kids

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