Science Fair Blues

Sister Suzie has a Fifth Grade Science Fair project due the week before Spring Break.

Great.

No Problem... Except, there are a MILLION AND ONE rules for the stupid thing and I.can't.stand.complicated. BUT.... being the good, involved, uber-savvy mom I am, I immediately snapped my fat mouth shut attitude in check and set to work finding experiment books for kids on our local library website. I think we checked out seven or eight.... we ended up coming up with an interesting twist on a time-honored classic.



Setting up the experiment
(don't mind the date-stamp LOL)



THE POTATO CLOCK!

We looked at diagrams online and I was pretty sure we could set this puppy up with NO PROBLEMS! HA!

Every explanation I found listed two frustrating pieces of needed equipment. A 1.5-2v  LCD clock, and alligator clips. Now, these are fairly commonplace items... not hard to find at your local hardware or big box store. Except, based on the comments of the type of batteries used, I assumed we needed a little tiny travel clock. And based on the *ahem*not-so-helpful-employee*ahem* at the hardware store, the alligator clips are FLIPPING HUGE! HA!

This meant that tonight's initial set-up of the project took significantly longer than my estimated "throw it together, 30mins - tops" exclamation, and included a tantrum or two... mostly by me. I know. I'm hanging my head in shame. Despicable.

The up-side to this wildly, adventurous scientific journey is that we FINALLY got the stupid rigged circuits to work and Sister Suzie is well on her way to a decent grade - despite my ineptitude!

Here are a few pictures of her work.



Set #1



Set #2

In-home Science Center