Fun Home Experiment: Split a Penny in Twain!

Use your head when doing this experiment. An ounce of prevention and all that.

File off the edge of a 1982 or later penny. You'll see the silvery zinc underneath. Drop the filed penny into a small glass with hydrochloric acid in it (get some Muriatic acid from the paint store--it's something like 37% HCl). BE CAREFUL with this stuff, it's very caustic.

You'll see the penny bubbling away as the zinc and HCl react. The copper won't react with the HCl, however. Let the penny bubble until it stops (mine took about 90 minutes). Run the water in your sink at full blast and SLOWLY decant the acid out of the glass and into the sink. Use a metal strainer if you can't pour slowly enough to prevent your penny-copper-foils from pouring out. DON'T add water to your acid in the glass. That's bad.

Rinse the penny foils thoroughly and check them out! COOL! The picture seems mundane until you consider that it is of both sides of the same penny.

Two Easy Physics Experiments to Try at Home from Pow!Science!

Each month, Pow!Science! offers fun, free Family Science Nights, where parents and kids sit down together to perform 3 engaging, hands ON experiments.

Find out when the next FSN is happening on our Events Calendar. If you can't make it to a Family Science Night, try the two simple Physics Experiments below!

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Two Cool Experiments to See Just How Things Work



Experiment ONE: Lift Heavy with Light


Get these Materials Ready:

• Marble*

• Ball of Clay, larger & heavier than the marble

• Empty Spool or an empty toilet/paper towel roll (you’ll need a longer string
if you use a paper towel roll)

• String, about 12 inches long (longer can be hazardous)

• Tape

* If you don't have a marble handy, the experiment can also be performed with two balls of clay; one smaller, one larger.


Do These Steps:


1) Tape one end of the string to the marble (use plenty of tape to make sure it’s
secure).

2) Thread the string through the spool, and then attach (using tape if necessary)
the other end of the string to the ball of clay.

READ THIS, then TRY IT:

Even though the clay ball is heavier than the marble, you can use the
marble to support the ball by holding the spool and spinning the marble around
like a lasso. Practice lifting the clay ball by “marble spin power”. Can you make
the clay ball stay at a constant height? Try it!




Experiment TWO: Up Against the Wall!



Get these Materials Ready:

A Paper Towel, handkerchief or any small object

A Partner



Do These Steps:

1) Stand with your heels right up against a wall.

2) Have your partner place the paper towel about 30 centimeters in front of your
toes.

3) Try and bend down WITHOUT BENDING YOUR KNEES and pick up the
paper towel. PARTNER: Be ready to help keep experimenter from falling!


What Happens?


4) Now stand about 60 centimeters away from the wall, and repeat the
experiment with the paper towel.



What happens this time?

Lego Behind the Scenes Factory Video! Must see of Lego Maniacs!

Lego is still the most popular toy ever. Even though their patent recently ran out, resulting in a spate of competition, the quality control and sheer "cool factor" of Lego still makes it the 800 Pound Gorilla of the Building Toy World: Check out this must-see behind the scenes video!

Bed Bugs-Not just for the New York Carriage Trade! $8.95 & Free Shipping!

Lately you've heard about bed bugs showing up in posh (and not so posh) locations countrywide, notably in Manhattan.

Well, even if your address isn't fancy, you can have a Bedbug all your own from Pow!Science...but ours are the cute cuddly kind and come with Free Shipping as a bonus!

Giant Microbes Bedbug: $8.95 shipped

Fun Free Experiment from Pow!Science

If you couldn't make it to this month's Family Science Night at either Pow!Science! Location, here's a little taste of what went down last night in Providence. Gather some simple materials and perform two quick, easy & fun experiments at home!

Experiment ONE: BALL LIFTER

Get This Stuff Ready:
• Marble
• Rubber Ball (like a super ball, no more than 1 inch diameter)
• Empty Spool or an empty toilet/paper towel roll (you’ll need a longer string if you use a paper towel roll)
• String
• Tape

Do This:

1) Tape one end of the string to the marble (use plenty of tape to make sure it’s secure).
2) Thread the string through the spool, and then tape the other end of the string to the rubber ball.
3) Even though the ball is heavier than the marble, you can use the marble to support and even lift up the ball by holding the spool and spinning the marble around like a lasso.

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Experiment TWO: Up Against the Wall!

Get This Ready:

A Paper Towel
A Partner

Do This:

1) Stand with your heels right up against a wall.
2) Have your partner place the paper towel about 30 centimeters in front of your toes.
3) Try and bend down WITHOUT BENDING YOUR KNEES and pick up the paper towel. PARTNER: Be ready to help keep experimenter from falling!

What Happened?

4) Now stand about 60 centimeters away from the wall, and repeat the experiment with the paper towel.
What happened this time?

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Pow!Science! offers free, fun Family Science Nights every month at both our Wakefield and Providence Locations. Check our online Events Calendar to learn about this and other Pow!Science Workshops & Activities.

Classic Slime!
Parents: Read it through before performing this experiment!

Purpose: To create a fun-to-play with polymer

Materials:

Bowl
2 400ml Beakers (or 2 glasses/cups/empty jars of equal size)
Spoon
White Glue
Borax
Water
Food Coloring
Zip-lock style plastic bag
Funnel (optional)

Procedure:

1) Fill one beaker about halfway with glue. Add water until the beaker is nearly full, and gently stir until the water and glue are thoroughly mixed.
2) Add 4 or 5 drops of food coloring to the glue/water mixture and stir until the color is evenly distributed.
3) Pour your colored glue mixture into the bowl.
3) Fill the other beaker halfway with water. Add 4 heaping spoonfuls of Borax and stir gently until the water looks gray. Some Borax will settle onto the bottom of the beaker. That’s fine. Pour the gray water into the colored glue, being careful not to let the Borax that is still powdered plop in. Stir the contents of the bowl and watch what happens!
4) After gently but thoroughly stirring the glue/borax mixture, pick up the bowl and using your fingers as a strainer, pour the liquid portion back into one of the beakers while leaving just the gooey blob in the bowl.
5) Pick up the gooey blob and squeeze & squish it (use the same motion as if you were making a snowball). In a few moments, the wetness will disappear, leaving you with a cool ball of colored slime! Stretch it! Roll it! Bounce it! It's awesome!
6) Store your slime in the plastic bag when not in use.

Try This!
Put a funnel into one of the beakers (or an empty jar, if you don’t have a beaker). Roll the slime into a nice, round ball and plop the ball into the funnel. Observe the funnel/slime setup every ten minutes or so. Does anything change?

What’s Going On?
Mixing with Borax causes the glue to polymerize, or convert into an amorphous (“shape changing") solid. Since this is a chemical change, the slime cannot be converted back into glue.

Caution: Do not leave slime on carpets, furniture or anything made of cloth, as it may stain such items. Only play with it on hard, smooth surfaces! Hot water will dissolve hardened slime.

©2010 Pow!Science!

Pow!Science Home Experiment: Electric Water (Adult Supervision Required)

Electric Water

Purpose: To observe the effects of electricity on water

Materials:

• Beaker, Jar or large glass
• 2 insulated wires(ideally one red & one black, but use what you've got) each equipped with an alligator clip at one end (or with an inch or two of uninsulated wire at each end)
• Water
• Salt
• Spoon
• 6V battery

CAUTION: THIS EXPERIMENT IS TO BE CONDUCTED ONLY WITH ADULT SUPERVISION!

Procedure:

PART ONE:

1) Fill the beaker with water until water is about an inch from the top (amount is not critical).

2) Clip the end of the black wire to the NEGATIVE ( - ) pole of the 6V battery.

3) Place the other end of the black wire into the water, so that the exposed end is fully submerged (bending the wire over the lip of your beaker/container will help keep the wire in there).

4) Clip the end of the red wire to the POSITIVE (+) pole of the 6V battery.

5) Carefully place the other end of the red wire into the water so that the exposed end is fully submerged.

What, if anything happened when you placed the second wire into the water? Nothing, right?

CAUTION: AT NO TIME SHOULD THE TWO ENDS OF THE WIRES IN THE WATER BE ALLOWED TO TOUCH. If they do, you're setting up a 'no load' or 'short' circuit and the wires and battery will begin to heat up.

PART TWO:

1) Disconnect the wires from the battery and remove them from the water.

2) Repeat steps 2) through 5) from Part One, EXCEPT THIS TIME, first add 5 or 6 spoonfuls of salt to the water and stir until it is completely dissolved.

3) Allow this setup to run for several minutes.

Did anything different happen this time (if it didn't, add more salt--amount needed will vary based on the size of your container)?

What’s Going On?

Despite its bad reputation from movies and TV, fresh water does not really conduct electricity well, as you observed from Part One of our experiment. When Salt is added to water, it dissolves into ions of Sodium and Chlorine, which conduct electricity very well indeed! The gross stuff that started to form in the water (starting out yellow and turning green if you watched long enough) is Sodium Hydroxide (also known as Caustic Soda or Lye), a major ingredient in soap!

Think and Talk About This!

Sodium Hydroxide is made of Sodium, Oxygen and Hydrogen. The Sodium comes from the salt. Where does the Oxygen and Hydrogen come from? (HINT: Think about the chemical formula for water).

Optional Method for enhancing the results:

To make the reaction a bit more noticeable, try wrapping a small strip of aluminum foil around the end of the black wire that goes into the water.

M.A.P. -Why I don't like Minimum Advertised Pricing.

M.A.P. -Why I don't like Minimum Advertised Pricing.

More and more toy manufacturers are attempting to enforce "Minimum Advertised Pricing" policies for online sales. The general idea is to impose a minimum price, below which a product may not be sold. Selling for less can result in non-shipment of new product to the offending retailer. On the surface, this seems an honorable act. Usually we're told that it's to "level the playing field" between us and the big boxes such as Target or Walmart. Companies don't want to "cheapen the brand".

Thanks, but not only didn't I ask for the field to be leveled, I didn't realize that a level playing field was the point of owning a business in a capitalist society! I didn't get into business to even try and compete with big boxes. I'm not that stupid.

While we appreciate and understand the intent of fair pricing, what it essentially does is make small stores like Pow!Science! virtually invisible in web search results, despite our best SEO efforts. We can't buy the top spots (which no matter what you may have read elsewhere, are for sale) or afford to run up huge AdSense bills, so we end up on page 3, or 6....or deeper still. And when all the prices are the same, nobody will search past page 1 or 2 of their search results. Heck, they don't even do that when prices are all over the map (no pun intended). Price is the one edge we've got, and because we've got lower overhead and other avenues of income, we can usually afford to offer a pretty competitive one--M.A.P. takes that away.

Our superior customer service and product knowledge don't count for much when we can't even get seen. Our lower overhead loses its advantageous properties when we can't utilize it to give ourselves an edge on price just to get noticed online.

And of course, it's just not enforceable. Every time I get an email from a manufacturer telling me of new M.A.P. Policies, I do a product search, and invariably find sites that are selling for less.

We're not saying M.A.P. is wrong. Even Communism works on paper. We're just saying that without exception, it has resulted in decreased online sales for us in every line that imposes it, and there are always businesses out there that ignore it. Me, I'd rather have the opportunity to sell ten units at a lower profit than Zero units but with the integrity and warm fuzzy feeling of knowing I'm not "cheapening the brand". Can't eat warm fuzzies.

What do you think?

Da Vinci Machine - The Coolest Logic/Puzzle Game You've Never Heard Of

The Da Vinci Machine
Detect. Deduce. Decode. And a 15% Discount (see below)!



What does this intriguing game have to do with Leonardo Da Vinci? Absolutely nothing. But don't hold that against it. This game has a sophisticated look and mode of play that gets kids excited, but is both educational and simple enough so as not to frustrate younger players. That said, adults will find it sufficiently challenging and far from "too easy".

So, How do you play it?

1. One player is the Encoder, the other player is the Decoder. The Encoder must think of a three or four letter word after drawing two cards to determine the ‘Word Type’ and ‘Spelling Condition’ of the secret word to be formed. When choosing a secret word to encode, the Encoder must choose a word that obeys both the 'Word Type' and 'Spelling Condition' put forth by the cards drawn.

Examples:
Word Type~"The Word must be a living thing."
Spelling Condition ~ "The Word must contain two vowels."
Thus, the Encoder could choose words such as "Bee", "Mole" or "Boar". All of these words meet the conditions put forth by the cards...but so do many, many others.

2. The Encoder uses the red chips to form a secret word of his or her choosing by placing the chips in the correct sequence into the Code Machine.The Encoder then covers the secret word by closing all of the windows. Optionally, the Encoder may announce the number of letters used in the word, so as not to totally vex the Decoder.

3. The Decoder cracks the secret word with as few windows opened as possible. In each round, the Decoder opens one small window at any position and attempts to name the secret word. In each game, the Decoder has a total of three chances to ask the Encoder a question for a yes-or-no answer as a hint. The questions can be used all at once or separately. When the secret word is correctly cracked, count and record the total number of windows opened. Open all windows to confirm the code is correct.

4. Players switch sides and repeat Steps 1 to 3. The player (decoder) that requires the fewest windows opened is the winner.
There's even an option for 3 Players:
One player is the Encoder and the other two players are the competing Decoders. The set-up procedure is the same as the 2-Player game. The two Decoders take turns to open a window and attempt to crack the secret word. Each Decoder has a total of three chances to ask the Encoder a question for a yes-or-no answer as a hint. The Decoder who successfully cracks the secret word first is the winner.

It's sort of like "Mastermind" meets "Wheel of Fortune"...and it'll hook you quickly. I recommend keeping a pencil handy, not to keep score, but to assist in opening the windows; they're a bit small, and adult fingers sometimes have a bit of trouble opening them.

The Da Vinci Machine is available at the Pow!Science! Online store, and blog readers can get an additional 15% Off using Coupon Code 'bloggerfan' during checkout, now through June 30th,2010. Click here to visit the Pow!Science! Store.

Do you own The Da Vinci Machine? Write a Review!

Pow! Science!'s Best Method Ever for the Diet Coke & Mentos Experiment

Over the past few weeks as school years around Rhode Island are winding down, I've been busier than ever performing Pow!Science's Big Audience Assembly Program, "Science Asks Why", due in large part to the fantastic Science Inquiry Day programs put on by the East Bay Educational Collaborative.

Kids and teachers alike seem to really enjoy the show, but it's always the last demonstration that gets them the most excited, and although I certainly did not invent the famous "Diet Coke & Mentos" experiment, I most definitely have perfected it, resulting in round, brown stains on the ceilings of many Rhode Island Elementary School Auditoriums. After the program, I'm almost always asked how I get this particular demonstration to work so well.

I'll skip over the science behind why this experiment works at all, and tell you the simple secrets to getting a great geyser every time. Use these simple methods and you'll easily get 30 foot plumes of soda flying into the air (without any special restriction device screwed to the top of the bottle) to the delight of any kid (or adult) who happens to be watching.

1. Use Diet Pepsi instead of Diet Coke. Odd, I realize, to perform the famous "Diet Coke & Mentos" experiment without Diet Coke. Truth be told, they both work--but I've used both extensively, and I consistently find Diet Pepsi to work just a little bit better--so why not use it instead?

2. Heat the Soda (without opening the bottle, of course). Get a nice big pitcher--a one gallon size is great-- and put your unopened bottle of soda in. Then, fill the pitcher with the hottest water you can get to come out of your sink (DON'T heat water on the stove and use that, please! There's hot and then there's just too hot). Let that bottle sit in the hot water bath for a good twenty minutes and I guarantee maximum altitude.

3. Figure out a good, dependable delivery system to drop the Mentos into the bottle as quickly as possible. I use a Giant Test Tube (sometimes called a 'Baby Soda Bottle', but that's a whole different article). You might use one too, or you might use a rolled up piece of cardboard.

4. When you "blast off", do it from a table top, such as a picnic table. Or put the bottle of soda on top of a wall. Whatever, anything to get it launching from just a bit higher than the ground. Launching from the ground isn't bad, but if you want spectacular results, give yourself a height advantage! 3 feet higher is, after all, 3 feet higher! The more kids have to bend their necks to see the top of the plume, the cooler they will think you are.

Got questions? I've got answers. Feel free to post Comments, Questions, or pictures of your own Soda-rific results. Have fun!

If you can't make it to this month's Family Science Night, here's a fun & easy experiment to do at home--you'll love it, and we challenge you to wrap your brain around just how it works. Remember, Pow!Science! offers fun, FREE Family Science Nights every month at both locations. Check the Events Calendar for all the info!

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LIKE a ROLLING SODA

Materials:

• Two unopened cans of soda
• Inclined surface

Procedure:

1. Locate the inclined surface (If you’re experimenting at home, stick a book under a board, or prop up two legs of a table or something).

2. Teamwork required! One person stands at the raised end of the inclined surface with the soda. This person is the Roller. The other person stands at lower end of the inclined surface. This person is the Catcher.

3. The Roller should carefully lay the cans on their sides on the starting line (at the raised end of the inclined surface). When you’re sure the Catcher is ready, release both cans at the same time, and watch them roll. They should roll to the Catcher at about the same speed.

4. Return both cans to the Roller. The Roller should now select JUST ONE of the cans, and shake it vigorously for about 10 seconds. Repeat step 3 (Roll the cans to the Catcher again).

What’s Going On?

Wow! The unshaken can wins every time! This is because shaking the can knocks loose any bubbles sticking to the inner surface of the can. This causes the mass of the soda inside the can to be more evenly distributed throughout the can, causing it to roll more slowly. The unshaken can’s soda is (just a little tiny bit) more concentrated around the can’s axis of rotation (it’s center), and therefore rolls a little bit faster.

Think and talk about this!

There is a famous demonstration using a stool with a spinning seat. If you have one, you can try it. Spin on the stool with your arms held straight out. While spinning, pull your arms in tightly to your chest. Your spinning-speed will increase quickly!! It’s the same idea. The closer your mass is to your center, the faster you spin.

GRAPE JUICE CHEMISTRY

Objective: To observe Grape Juice’s natural ability to detect acids and bases.

Materials:

• Grape Juice (Juicy Juice works very well, even though it's not 100% Grape Juice)
• Water
• Baking Soda
• Citric Acid Crystals (substitute vinegar if you don’t have citric acid crystals)
• Spoon
• 3 Clear plastic cups or glasses (10-12 ounce capacity)
• Paper Towels (optional, but handy in case of an overflow)
  

Procedure:

1. Pour about 1 inch of Grape Juice into an empty cup. Then add about an inch of water to the Grape Juice to lighten its color.
2. Pour about 1 inch of water into a different cup. Add a spoonful of Baking Soda to this water and stir until dissolved (or mostly dissolved).
3. Pour about 1 inch of water into your last cup. Add a spoonful of Citric Acid Crystals to this cup and stir until dissolved (or mostly dissolved). If you don’t have citric acid crystals, pour 1 inch of vinegar into the cup for this step.

KEEP TRACK OF WHICH CUP IS WHICH!

4. Pour the Baking Soda liquid into the Grape Juice and watch for a color change. Cool! Grape Juice detects chemicals that are “alkaline” or “bases” by turning darkish green-ish!
5. Next, pour the Citric Acid liquid into the darkish green-ish liquid. Whoa!!

Grape juice detects acids by turning a very light color! And as you may have noticed, baking soda and citric acid react in an exciting way also.

What’s Going On?

Grape juice, like many other natural chemicals, reacts when different types of chemicals are mixed with it. Cabbage juice is another example of a natural acid/base indicator.

Think and Talk About This:

Do you think toothpaste is an acid or a base? How could you find out? What other chemicals could you test with your Grape Juice indicator? With mom or dad’s permission & help, design and experiment and try it out!

It's Rocket Season!

As a friend recently reminded me, spring is in the air, and for us nerds, that means it's time to start building & launching Estes Rockets. Chances are you haven't launched one in a long time, but can probably recall the thrill of pressing the button and hearing the hissing WHOOSH as the rocket thunders skyward.

If you haven't ever launched a rocket, then you are not much of a nerd (but we can help you). We've got two Estes Starter sets in stock, the Alpha III and the Taser.

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The Estes Alpha III is an E2X Starter Set. More people have started with this timeless, easy to build rocket than any other in the history of the world! Features include a bright molded one piece fin unit , nose cone and engines for two fantastic parachute recovered flights. The Estes Alpha III Starter Set is the standard for beginning starter sets.

Includes:

• Estes Alpha III Model Rocket kit
• Estes Electron Beam Launch Controller
• Estes Launch Pad
• Model rocket engines
• Parachute Wadding

What you'll need:

• White Glue
• Scissors
• 4 AA Batteries for the Launch Controller
• MSRP: $34.99

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The Estes Taser Launch Set has a 3-fin designed rocket that allows this sleek, high flier to soar up to 1,000 feet into the air! The Taser is another E2X skill level kit that is easy to assemble.

No painting is required with the pre-colored parts. After it's built, simply apply the great looking decals, and your ready to blast off. The Estes Taser rocket then glides back down on a colorful and pre-installed 12 inch parachute.


Includes:

• Taser Rocket
• Launch Pad
• Electron Beam Launch Controller
• Rocketeer's Guide to Model Rocketry

NOTE than unlike the Alpha III, the Taser does NOT include Rocket Motors. Those must be purchased separately.

MSRP: $29.99

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The best thing about either of these sets is that the Launch Pad and Launch Controller will work for any other rocket you ever build and launch. Invest in one starter kit now and you'll have years of launching to look forward to.

Family Science Night: Juice Box Jetpack!

Each month, Pow!Science! offers free, fun Family Science Nights.

At our Wakefield location, they're on the Wednesday of the third week of the month and in Providence they're the last Wednesday of each month.
When you attend a Family Science Night, you and your child or children sit down together and perform 3 fun & easy yet engaging Experiments. All materials are provided by your Pow!Science! professional, who also sticks around throughout the evening to help you out if you get stuck.

If you'd like to know when exactly our Family Science Nights are happening, check out the Online Events Calendar. You can also check out the full list of upcoming activities, workshops & more while you're there.

Registration for Family Science Night is Free, but because we can only fit 10 kids in per session (and because the price is right), they tend to fill up fast. If you can't make it to FSN, we can bring a bit of FSN to you. Keep reading to check out the procedure for the "Juice Box Jetpack" Experiment that we'll be performing in Providence's April 28th FSN and at Wakefield's next FSN in May.

To register for a Family Science Night, call your location of choice: Providence: (401) 432-7040 Wakefield: (401) 788-1024

As the title implies, you'll need an empty juice box, so this is a great experiment to perform after a snack!

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Juice Box Jetpack!

Objective: To observe Newton’s 3^rd Law of Motion (Action/Reaction) in cool new way!

Materials:

• Empty Juice Box
• String
• Water
• Something Pointy
• Something Sharp
  

Procedure:

1. Drink your juice.
   
2. Fold the flap on the top of the box up. You may have to pry up the corner flaps also. Using something sharp, cut open the top of the juice box and open it right up like a milk carton.
3. Using something pointy, poke holes in the top flaps of the juice box (see diagram).
4. Using something pointy, poke a hole in the lower right corner of the front AND in the lower right corner of the back of the juice box. In the diagram, you can see the hole in the lower right corner.
   
5. Pass the string through both top-holes and knot the string so that the box is hanging from the string—the top of the box should still be open.
6. Bring water and your juice box-on-a-string and stand over a sink, outside, or over a container--somewhere you don't care about getting wet.
7. THE TRICKY PART: TEAMWORK REQUIRED! One person holds the water in one hand and the hanging juice box (hold by the string) over the large container on the floor. The other person locates the two little holes in the bottom right corners of your juice box and covers them with their fingers.
8. The person holding the water pours the water into the top of the juice box.
9. The person covering the holes lets go!

What happens? Water should shoot out of the holes and cause the juice box to spin until the water runs out.

What’s Going On?

When you let go of the holes in the juice box, the water rushes out—that is a force. As the water leaves the carton, it pushes back on the carton with a second, equal force, just as the fuel burning out of a rocket propels it forward.

Think and Talk About This:

Look carefully at where the holes in the bottom of the box are located. Are they on the same side? Opposite sides? Would this experiment work differently if both holes were on the same side of the box?

The Pumponator. Summertime Fun is Back.

The Pumponator. It's a portable, easy to use Inflation Station. Pump it up and it'll hold pressure while you fill lots of balloons before you need to pump again. The coolest aspect, however, is the fact that you can fill the chamber with water, pressurize that, and fill water-balloon after water-balloon without getting squirted by a hose and without splitting the neck of the balloon on a spigot that's just a little bit too big.

The thing comes with 500 Balloons and strings for tying them off, which you can do while it hangs there on the nozzle. No batteries, no electrically powered compressor. Kids want to pump it for you. It's just an all around win. It's almost as if someone sent it back from the future to find you...

The Pumponator:
MSRP: $19.99
Pow!Science! Website Special Price: $18.39 (you must buy online to get this price)
Pow!Science! Website Price + Shipping: $26.38
Click to Read More, to see it in action or to buy. Locals, select "Pick Up at the Store" as your shipping option. We'll hold your Pumponator aside for you.

CPSIA Survivor: Complex 39 Shuttle Launch Adventure Set: It's Back!

Action Products, the Manufacturer of the Space Voyagers® line, got hit very hard by the changes in the CPSIA regulations on Toy Safety. It's not that we don't all see a need for safe toys--that's a no-brainer; but it doesn't seem quite fair that companies like Action got stuck with thousands of units of toys that were already imported legally under the (then)current safety standards and were quite literally made illegal overnight because previously imported toys were not protected when the new standards went into effect. Medium sized companies like Action were among the hardest hit.

Now owned by BSW Toys, Action Products and the Space Voyagers Adventure series are back! After being backordered forever, one of their most popular products, the Complex 39 Shuttle Launch Adventure Set is finally back in stock, and we've got it for you. Retailing at $29.99, we're lowering that to $25.25 because it's a bear to ship (big!).

See it here in all of its glory, read more about it or purchase one if you like!

Now that BSW seems to have regained its momentum, we're hoping that they'll bring back other enormously popular Action Products toys like the Crazy for Cupcakes line as well as the rest of the Space Voyagers (including re-sculpted, re-vamped Astro-Squad Action Figures).

Eric Bulmer
Pow!Science!
Program Director & Co-Owner
www.powscience.com
www.powsciencetoys.com

Pow! Professional Development

Pow!Science! is proud to announce that we are now a registered Professional Development Provider in the State of Rhode Island.

Our initial PD offering, the USB Microscope Master Class, provides teachers with training in the operation and application of a plug-and-play USB 35x Microscope. Participants will be introduced to the microscope itself and shown how its use can be applied to Chemistry, Earth Science, Biology, Physics and Forensics.

We're offering this program in two packages:
Package 1 ($150.00) includes an hour of training for up to 12 teachers and includes one microscope for the school.
Package 2 ($200.00) includes an hour of training for up to 12 teachers and includes 2 microscopes for the school.

This is a registered and approved program for Professional Development Credit by the Rhode Island Department of Education.

Contact Pow!Science! at (401) 788-1024 for more information, or visit www.powscience.com.

What is this?! At just 35x magnification, whiskers look like tree trunks!

Yoyo Club starting at Pow!Science! Providence: April 2nd 2010

Our recent Yoyo demonstration from Duncan pro Jeff Coons(above)was such an inspiration that one young yoyo player in attendance approached us about starting a yoyo club at Pow!Science! Providence.

Hmm...sponsoring Little League? Worthy, but not quite our style. Football Booster ad? Not really nerdy enough for us. But a Yoyo Club? That's totally Pow!Science!, and we quickly agreed.

Starting April 2nd at 3:30pm, the Pow!Science! Providence Yoyo Club will hold its first meeting. Regular meetings will be held the first Friday of every month from 3:30 to no-later-than 5. All meetings will be held in the Activity Room.

Graeme S. will be the coordinator--come and meet Graeme at the Club's first meeting! All skill levels are welcome; come ready to learn, to teach, to share your love of the sport. Hope to see you and your yoyo there!

Pow!Science! Providence
192 Wayland Ave
Providence RI 02906
(401) 432-7040

Wizard Sticks-Fog Generating Wands by Zero Toys

Wizard Sticks--invented by brothers in Connecticut & used by kids, performers & professionals (the fog is great for detecting leaks). Add the included "Super Zero Fluid" and batteries (not included), squeeze and you're gushing fog like crazy.

We've got 6 left until our next shipment, so we're movin' 'em out at $15.99 each + shipping (regular retail is $18.99).

Local shoppers can buy online & select "Pick up at the Store" for free shipping; we'll process your order and have your items ready & waiting.

Click through to learn more or to buy one!