Kids spent an hour Sunday afternoon eating cookies, drinking juice, and creating a complex Rube Goldberg machine at the J.J.R. Macleod Auditorium in the Medical Sciences Building.
Anything from foam packaging to super-bouncy balls to copies of The Varsity were fair game for kids and their parents to make a machine that would move a marble, in a minimum of five steps, for a distance of 30 centimetres from its original position.
“We’re not sure what we’re doing, but we’re having fun doing it,” said Terry (right), who was in the process of making a funnel out of last Thursday’s edition of The Varsity with his children Reid and Griffia.
The event, hosted by Let’s Talk Science on the invitation of the Royal Canadian Institute for the Advancement of Science brought “hands-on, minds-on activities to help children use all kinds of skills that are at the foundations of science,” according to Sara Steers, the director of external relations for the national charitable organization.
Ramps, funnels, and towers of newsprint propped up with pipe cleaners were all constructed in the name of science as kids and their parents practised problem solving, communication skills, and the laws of gravity on a marble.
“What we do is aimed at all this age group here-future scientists, future citizens, future Canadians, and they need to know about science, and all the skills that come from learning science,” said Steers.
-Kevin Wong
