LEGO® ALTERNATIVE ENERGY
It's winter in Idaho ( at least when I wrote this ), and of primary importance in everyone's mind ( besides snowboarding ) is the subject of ENERGY! Of course everyone knows that the idea of energy is relatively modern ( coined by Thomas Young sometime around the beginning of the 19th century...in fact I have been told that Newton never mentions the word "energy" in any of his writings ). It has been defined as a force that performs work! ( Energy comes from the greek word meaning work ).
We spent the first week just discussing what energy is and how it is measured. ( Speaking of which, I have a student who is building a device that will demonstrate Joules with LEGO® bricks! ) PCS students chatted about KINETIC and POTENTIAL ENERGY! The second week involved demonstrating how to transform one kind of energy into another! ( The First Law of the Conservation of Energy states that energy cannot be created or destroyed! I would flip off the lights and ask students if I had killed the energy. "Is energy flopping around like fish in the lights right now?" )
Teaching the Class!
A few LEGO® demonstrations:
A Simple Coil made with Nails, Copper Wire and a Magnet
A LEGO® Generator
A LEGO® Generator using a 9 volt motor
A LEGO® Simple Motor
As I said about a jillion times, LEGO® bricks are a great way to motivate people to explore and discover!
For example, my students were absolutely fascinated with a solar powered car
I had built as part of our alternative energy series! ( More on that later! )
During the course of 1996 I have taught a series with the theme of alternative energy
and integrating LEGO® bricks into the classes. Students are intrigues by the concepts of
power, and LEGO® bricks provide a forum to experiment with differnent aspects
energy!
Go Back to Weird Richard
Copyright© 1996 by Richard Wright for PCS Education Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved