recycling

Sliding, Rolling, and Gliding

/ mwinikates / 2 Comments

Downhill skiing is fast.  Ice skating’s got those nifty blades.  Bobsleds are faster and those runners are longer, and they make that awesome ‘whooshing’ sound.  What’s not to love?  (Okay, so I was maybe influenced a little a lot by Cool Runnings as a kid.  I’m not the only one.)

Bobsleigh Homepage at Olympic.org — full of fun stuff!  Current photos and videos from the ongoing games, equipment and history, techniques, etc.

Physics of Bobsledding at Howstuffworks

Team USA’s Bobsled page

Want to try building a bobsled course at home?

There was a tree at the base of the best side of the house for sledding when I was a kid.  A really big pine tree that you didn’t want to hit, if at all possible.  So my brother and I, assisted by our parents, got pretty decent at packing up snowbanks so that we would curve around the tree, around the corner of the house, and out into the backyard.  It worked enough of the time to be worth it.

However, there are safer, smaller ways to build a bobsled course that don’t involve pine needles down your jacket collar.  My favorite is the paper-towel-tube bobsled run.  The simplest of indoor Olympic sports, all you need are paper towel tubes (wrapping paper tubes, mailing tubes, toilet paper rolls, you get the picture), marbles or toy cars (I’m more of a marbles fan, myself.  Run 4 at a time for a four-man sled!), masking tape, and a whole lot of books, furniture, and boxes to form your ‘hill.’  Cut, tape, and go wild!

(To make ‘curved’ sections, I recommend cutting out triangular pieces from the paper towel rolls [which end up looking like diamonds once you’ve made the two angled cuts] and bending and taping them together.  This takes some practice to get a reasonable variety of angles that aren’t going to make your marbles stick in the turns!)

For other examples, check out some of these snazzy runs for ideas!

Patriotic Marble Run

Courtesy of Marie at MakeandTakes.com

Winter Olympics Games for Kids from MakeandTakes.com (for very young children)

A 3 floor marble run and you want more?

For the truly Olympic oriented educator, Kathi Mitchell’s impressive Olympics for Kids round-up page, with lesson plans, interactives, and assorted links galore.

Ideabox: CD’s and CD cases

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photo credit to ChristopherA

Due to the upswing of digitally-downloaded music, mp3 players, et al. there are a lot fewer junk CD’s and spare CD cases lying around these days.  This is certainly good for the planet, but not so great for those of us who like making cool projects out of them.  Fortunately, computer programs still end up replaced, CD-R’s burn with skips in them and have to be redone, and random CD cases still turn up in the bottom of your desk drawer when you least expect them.

So…what are some fun and funky things to do with these fabulous plastic leftovers?

ideabox cds

CD’s themselves

It is, of course, completely possible to just Google ‘CD crafts’ and find some cute projects, especially for kids–there are a reasonable number of idea-starters at Kaboose, for instance.  However, all that sifting takes time, so here are a few others of my favorites so far.

For the seasonally appropriate: Making CD Christmas Ornaments

For the jewelry fan: Example of CDs turned into earrings

For people who like to play with fire: (no seriously, apparently they want you to use a candle to heat the CD in order to bend it!) How to Make a CD into a Cellphone Holster

For the purely silly: CD Air Hockey Rink

For the science-minded: CD’s are obviously cool for the way they split light into its component rainbow colors–this is called a diffraction grating.  For an explanation of diffraction grating, how it works, and CD’s in particular, click here.  For a really cool build-your-own-spectroscope project, click here.

CD Jewel Cases

For the nature fan: CD Jewel Case birdhouse/greenhouse

For the recyclables architect: Cubic Display Case on Instructables (there are a lot of other cool CD case projects on the same site, check the sidebar for a few examples!)

Still looking for more ideas? There’s another fun collection on HubPages, here.  My favorite idea there is definitely the suncatcher, but see what inspires you!

Stay tuned for the next Ideabox post: cool stuff to do with those CD-R and DVD-R spindles, thread spools, and more!