Neil A. Downie

Those of us who were fans of the old "Amateur Scientist" column of Scientific American will enjoy this collection of projects that look to be fun to build and to play with. These are all things that the author has invented or adapted for a Saturday Science Club for kids near his home in Guildford, UK. Each project begins with a little literary or sometimes historical background, then an estimate of the "Degree of difficulty" precedes a list of materials - "What you need", and directions - "What you do". The science and the math associated with each device is clearly spelled out, and there are suggestions for related investigations and references when they might be useful. My favorite segment, however, is called "The Surprising Parts", where unexpected or unusual characteristics of the projects are described. But what I want to know is: "How do I join that Science Club?"… (más)

I am always looking for science/engineering projects that would be fun to do, and to encourage students to try. Neil Downie's first book, "Vacuum Bazookas, Electric Rainbow Jelly, and 27 Other Experiments for Saturday Science" was a Pick for March, 2002. His latest one has three electrochemical projects, "Red-Hot Batteries", "Unusually Cool Sunglasses", and the surprising "Wet Solar Cell" (the earlier one also had only a few that were explicitly chemical). However, there are plenty of other phenomena that are part of the chemistry curriculum, such as "Coulter's Bubbles", "Glacial Oscillations", and "Electronic Elastic". In this last one, it is shown that a rubber band becomes more opaque to the light of a green LED as it is stretched, contrary to what you might expect. The science in these projects is very nicely explained and the directions are good enough for their completion, although some improvisation and experimentation will be necessary. Of course, that's where much of the fun lies!… (más)