Crayon Physics

Check out Petri Purho's game called "Crayon Physics." You can download it from here for free.

The premise is pretty simple. Draw objects on the screen with crayon, and watch them obey the laws of physics. The key is to figure out how to use what you know about physics to move a ball from one place to another. Some of the puzzles are easy, but others take some real creativity.



When my wife first saw the name and interface, she blew it off completely. But she happened to be watching when I was trying to solve one particularly tricky problem, and got sucked in within 30 seconds. Really cool. There's a new version coming out soon.

Make a Hi-Fi Speaker With a Paper Plate

Here's a fun little project that can lead to all sorts of interesting experiments and design ideas.
Jose Pino has managed to design a simple speaker that you can build from a couple of bucks worth of components that you likely already have lying around the house. The whole thing can be done in about an hour (not including time for the glue to dry), perfect for a lab or study hall period.

You follow his step-by-step instructions online here, but the fun part would be to see if you couldn't really begin to up the fidelity by working on some acoustics and cavity resonance, perhaps trying some other materials.....


Start here, and see what you can imagine!