We made things to fling: a boomerang (that actually worked if it was thrown a certain way) and a flying saucer frisbee.

We filled a container with water and Cameron demonstrated centripetal force by swinging it in circles around his head.

After being a smart aleck about the answer to what “the force” is, I managed to cut Cameron off in the middle of giving me the correct answer.

We used newspaper to make two different stools able to support a human.

We folded a circle of cardstock into a cone and spun coins around it and into a container.

We mixed up magnetic and non-magnetic things in a bowl and used bar magnets to separate the items.

We put magnetic things on paper, in a glass bowl, and in a plastic bowl to see if the magnet could move the items through the containers. We learned all three are possible, but it depends on how thick the container is and how strong the magnet is.

We poured some iron filings on a piece of paper and moved a bar magnet around underneath to show the flux lines.

We rubbed a piece of wool on a comb and then used the static electricity to bend a stream of water.

We rubbed the wool on two balloons and made them repel each other.

We rubbed the wool on a balloon and made the static electricity attract Cameron’s hair.

We made a potato clock. We tried making it work with lettuce (didn’t) and a lime (did). Potato clocks need the acid in fruits or vegetables in order to run. (A week later and the lime is still accurately keeping time!)

We made a racing car out of CDs, a toilet paper tube, and rubberbands. We were supposed to be able to wind it up and it would zoom away. This did not happen. We wound it up and it moved forward a few inches and backward a few inches over and over.

Sometimes our experiments don’t work at all. After a lot of cutting and maneuvering, we were supposed to be able to wind up the pencil and the construction paper birds would whirl around like on a merry-go-round. Instead, we wound it up and… nothing. While trying to adjust things to see if we could figure out how to make it work, it all came apart so we gave up on that one.

We made a catapult using soda bottles, rubberbands, and pencils. We pushed down on the pencil attached to the bucket, filled it with marshmallows, and let it go and the marshmallows went flying!