Yogurt Cup Speaker Experiment - Success

Today we did an experiment I found on the teachengineering.org site. Here is the link http://teachengineering.org/view_activity.php?url=http://www.teachengineering.org/collection/usc_/activities/usc_speakers/usc_speakers_activity1.xml

First there was a trip to Radio Shack to buy the supplies. I would like to tell what all was involved and how much work it took but I left it up the boys to do. It only took them about 45 minutes to complete the experiment.

I do know they discussed the vocabulary words listed in the lesson plan and discussed the whys of each step. I can tell you that LittleBit had the most fun using the batteries and wire to create a electromagnet to attract and repel the magnets. I can tell you it was a success, Dad attached the speaker to the sound system in the living room and we had sound. LittleBit chose Star Wars to put to listen to his speaker with. You could hear the high tone sounds, such as the light saber noise that is in the movie. Very impressive coming from a plastic cup with wire and a magnet.

Dad thought the instructions were good all be it a little vague, with the option of wire size it took some trial and error to figure how many times you needed to coil the wire for it to work. Overall a good experiment with room for a more detail experiment again when he is older.

The vocabulary words were:
magnet
electromagnet
magnetic field
magnetic force
current

The supplies we used were:
jello pudding cup
masking tape
magnet wire - 24g
D cell battery
magent - round 1"
wire cutters
hot glue