If you like to hack things (other than software, but sometimes including software,) a source for interesting projects is Make Magazine. I’ve now gotten a couple of them and have found them highly entertaining and sometimes informative.

This weekend I was looking for a fun activity to do with my 3.5 year old daughter (who likes magic) and decided to try out the project where you use $1.21 in change (pennies and dimes,) an icecube tray, saline solution, and an LED to make a battery and light. It was an interesting time starting with getting materials, I couldn’t find an icecube tray anywhere. So we fell back on 3oz paper cups (which was a good thing, as the cups could be “formed” into squares and the clips with change actually stayed attached.) Effectively, each cube well becomes a battery cell where a penny and a dime are attached to adjacent cells, you can measure current.



You can read about the project at Make here. Others tried and had difficulty with the slope of the icecube tray etc. We tried and managed to get 24 cells in a series producing 6v DC at about 110milliamps, enough to light up three bulbs. Needless to say, it was a great introduction to electricity and was somehow “magic.” Some of the posters had difficulties with the project, but we found it pretty much worked as advertised (less the icecube tray.) It was fun and I encourage you to try it sometime.

16 days to OSU/Michigan
Ohio State’s 2006 record: 9-0 Next up: at Illinois 11/4
Tune: Managua, Nicaragua by Guy Lombardo
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