Horizontal Hand Boiler
This device available here:
From Edicational Innovations: BUY NOW: Horizontal Hand Boiler
Horizontal Hand Boiler: liquid-gas phase transition. The boiling point of dichloromethane is slightly below body temperature and heat from a hand will induce vaporization of the liquid which increases pressure in one bulb pushing the red (dyed) liquid through the glass pipe to the other bulb. The process can repeat by switching the hand to the other side, but as both sides heat up the transfer is less vigorous. An inexpensive toy demonstrating phase changes and other thermodynamic physics.
Magic Sun Stone
Get a magic sun stone (rough gem quality iolite) here:
From eBay: BUY NOW: Iolite Sample
From Amazon: BUY NOW Iolite Sample
Affordable polarization filters and other polarization physics available here:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Polarizing Film Kit
The kit also includes a birefringent crystal, colorful optically active mica sheets, and a polarimetry demo that reveals when structures are under stress. A great value for so much physics fun!
Get the nice display stand here:
From eBay: BUY NOW Caliper Display Stand
Magic Sun Stone: gem quality iolite shows very strong pleochroism- its color depends on the polarization of light as it is transmitted through the crystal. The color of this rough iolite gemstone changes dramatically from clear to opaque purple as the orientation of a linear polarizing filter is rotated through 90 degrees. Also known as a "Viking sky compass" since it can detect the polarization of sunlight in the sky and thereby locate the sun for navigation even on cloudy days or when the sun is below the horizon- useful for this time of year far north.
Viewing the Feel Flux Magnetic Field
Get this device here:
From feelflux.com: BUY NOW Feel Flux
Get some magnetic viewing film here:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Magnetic Viewing Film
From Amazon: BUY NOW Magnetic Viewing Film
Viewing the Feel Flux Magnetic Field: Magneview film reveals the powerful field of the neodymium magnet as it falls with terminal velocity through the copper tube of the Feel Flux toy.
Mega Tippe-Top
Here is the mega tippe-top compared to typical tippe-tops on the market and a US quarter dollar:
Limited quantities available from the Spinning Top and Yo-Yo Museum of Burlington, Wisconsin
Educational Innovations has reasonably priced wood tippe-tops in their shop:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Tippe-Tops
From Amazon: BUY NOW Tippe-Tops
Mega Tippe-Top: spinning things often have surprising physics. This giant version of the famous flip-over top must be launched with a string pull to give it enough rotational energy to make the flip. It is also placed on a concave mirror to keep it from wandering too far. Friction with the mirror provides a torque that acts on the existing angular momentum of the top to flip it over.
Rocking Stork Drinking Bird
This artisitic version of the Drinking Bird available here:
From drinkingbird.eu: BUY NOW: Rocking Stork
Get a standard Drinking Bird from these sources:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW
Drinking Bird Engine
From Amazon: BUY NOW
Drinking Bird Engine
Wikipedia has wonderful details about the rich history (and further descriptions of the operational principals) of the Drinking Bird.
Rocking Stork: this species of drinking bird toy comes from the Czech Republic where each is crafted in blown glass by an artisan. This classic physics toy is a functional heat engine- cooling by evaporation at the head/beak leads to lower pressure in the top bulb, the pressure in the bottom bulb pushes the dichloromethane fluid (here dyed red) up the neck making the bird top heavy and the bird tips over dipping its beak and letting the fluid return to the bottom bulb. The process repeats, and as long as the top bulb stays wet and cooler than the bottom this heat engine will continue to cycle.
Reverse Cartesian Diver
Glass divers available here:
From Amazon: BUY NOW Glass Divers
The reverse diver needs a bottle with a oval shaped cross section. I used the bottle from this product- it has the right shape and size and the label comes off easily:
From Amazon: BUY NOW Oval Shaped Bottle Source
Inexpensive and fun diver kits available here:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Cartesian Diver Kits
Wikipedia has the details on the Cartesian diver (and reverse diver).
Reverse Cartesian Diver: physics puzzle (swipe for hint). On the left is a Cartesian diver- pressing on the bottle forces water into the glass diver, which then compresses the bubble in diver’s head allowing it to sink. On the right is a reverse Cartesian diver- again the bottle is pinched but this time the diver ascends- why?
Poly acrylamide Polymer Vanishing Act
Get some of these grow-spheres here:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Growing Spheres
Poly-acrylamide Polymer Vanishing Act: these spheres of hydrophilic polymer have an almost identical index of refraction as that of water- thus when submersed they become invisible. Note the elasticity of these spheres from the way they bounce, while at the same time they refract their surroundings as a spherical lens. The super absorbent spheres start as hard crystals with a radius of 2mm and grow to 11mm when immersed in water. So much physics going on here!
Polarization Test Card
These inexpensive test cards are available here:
From eBay: BUY NOW
Polarization Test Cards
Get some polarizing filter sheets here:
From Amazon: BUY NOW Polarizing Sheets
Explore many aspects of polarization with this kit:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Polarizing Filter Demo Kit
See this short introduction to linear polarizing filters on Hyperphysics, and many more details on polarization from Wikipedia.
Polarization Test Card: light has features that are invisible to the human eye, such as the orientation of its electric field (denoted as polarization), but can be revealed to us by a polarizing filter, used to block light with specific polarization orientations. Inexpensive test cards like this are often found in shops selling polarized sunglasses. The molecular structure of plastics can rotate the polarization of any light that passes through, and this card has such thin layers added to the top of the photo to create the hidden silhouettes seen here.
Mini-Toroflux
There are many affordable versions of this device:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Flow Ring
The original version is available here:
From Amazon: BUY NOW Toroflux
Get one and flow with it!
From Art of Play: BUY NOW
The Toroflux
Why does it look like a bubble when moving fast? Wikipedia has the details: when the object exceeds a certain speed the flicker fusion frequency of our vision produces the bubble illusion.
The physics of the toroflux is wonderfully illustrated and explained in this article by Daniel Walsh.
Mini-Toroflux: kinetic art toy made from a single continuous loop of stainless steel band. The band of spring metal is woven such that it forms a torus that can clamp on to and roll down a stick or in this case s segment of cord. This miniature version loops through itself nine times which requires the spring ribbon to twist creating a tension such that when released the spring will pop into its minimum energy state- a flower-like torus. Amazing combination of math and kinetic art invented by Jochen Valett. Thanks to Tim Rowett for sending me this rare mini version for my collection.
Radiometer in Arylic
Similar vintage items can often be found on eBay (a bit pricey though):
From eBay: BUY NOW Radiometer in Acrylic
Regular radiometers are available from these sources:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Radiometer
A wide variety available here, including some nice blown glass displays:
From Amazon: BUY NOW Radiometers
Hundreds of options on eBay:
From eBay: BUY NOW Radiometers
Radiometer in Arylic: kinetic energy from light in this Eames era vintage Lucite block sculpture with encased radiometer. Light heats up the "vanes" which then heat up the very thin gas left in the bulb- the black side of the vane is hotter than the colored side and any gas molecule that comes into contact with it flies off at a faster speed imparting impulse to the rotor.
US Patriotic Radiometer
Radiometers are available from these sources:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Radiometer
A wide variety available here, including some nice blown glass displays:
From Amazon: BUY NOW Radiometers
Hundreds of options on eBay:
From eBay: BUY NOW Radiometers
US Patriotic Radiometer: 4th of July physics toy on this 242th year since the the Declaration of Independence. Produced in the 1970s by Kyp-go (maker of Balafire bulbs) the images spin with kinetic energy converted from light. Light heats up the "vanes" which then heat up the very thin gas left in the bulb- the black side of the vane is hotter and any gas molecules that come into contact with it fly off at a faster speed imparting impulse to the rotor. Radiometers with special vanes like this are no longer in production but sometimes pop up for sale online as antiques.
Tiny Tippe Top
Available from this shop in Germany:
From experimentis-shop.de: BUY NOW Tiny Tippie-Top
Educational Innovations has reasonably priced, regular sized, wood tippe-tops in their shop:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Tippe-Tops
From Amazon: BUY NOW Tippe-Tops
Tiny Tippe-Top: spinning things often have surprising physics! The smallest functioning version of the famous flip-over top I've ever seen. Friction with the mirror provides a torque that acts on the existing angular momentum of the top to flip it over. The top will stay flipped until the spin rate slows down enough to where its center of mass pulls it back to the resting position.
Stainless Steel Rattleback
This metal version is available here:
From KJ Beckett: Metal Rattleback
These acrylic versions work great and are inexpensive:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Rattlebacks
From Amazon: BUY NOW Rattlebacks
Stainless Steel Rattleback: prefers to spin counter clockwise. If spun clockwise, a complicated combination of friction, precession, and instability induced vibrations transforms the rotational energy into into rattling (energy of oscillations) and then into rotational energy in the opposite direction! This behavior is related to the asymmetric shape of the bottom of this kind of rattleback, it's somewhat propeller shaped with an "S" curve along the bottom ridge.
Pencil Hyperboloid
Choose your color and get one here:
From Etsy: BUY NOW
Hyperboloid Pencil Holder
don't forget a set of pencils:
From Amazon: BUY NOW
Colored Pencil Sets
Better yet- get some thermochromic color changing pencils!
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW
Heat-Sensitive Pencils
Pencil Hyperboloid: a perfect gift for any math teacher- the precisely oriented holes in this base direct 16 pencils to reveal a hyperboloid, the 3D surface traced by revolving a diagonal(skew) line, the outline of which is the conic section of the hyperbola. A doubly ruled surface for any desktop!
Mirascope
Similar devices available here:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Mirascope
From Amazon: BUY NOW Mirascope
Mirascope: two parabolic mirrors create a 3D image above the actual object. A repost of one of my favorite physics toys ever. The image of the dice made here is not a hologram and is produced solely by reflection of light rays between special concave mirrors. Discovered circa 1969 by Landry and Elings at UC Santa Barbara.
Iron Filings in Silicone Oil Suspension
Available from these fine sources:
From Amazon: BUY NOW Magnetic Field Viewer Set (get the demo set)
Similar device here:
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Magnetic Field Viewer with Magnet
Iron Filings in Silicone Oil Suspension ( Iron filing field detector ): visualizing the invisible- the magnetic field lines around a horseshoe magnet. In the presence of a magnetic field, ferromagnetic materials (such as iron) temporarily become magnets. Here the iron filings become dipole magnets and link up and align like tiny compass needles to follow and reveal the magnetic field lines associated with the permanent magnet underneath. Viscous silicone oil temporarily keeps the iron particles suspended yet allows for rotation and repositioning under the influence of the magnetic field.
Polarizing Filter Black Wall Illusion
Amazon lists acrylic tubing at a reasonable price: get a 2 foot long tube with an inner diameter of 1.5 inches for about $17 US. This will accommodate a large marble for the demonstration.
From Amazon: BUY NOW Acrylic Tubing
For a 1.5 inch inner diameter (3.8 cm) tube you will need a 10 inch (25.4 cm) wide sheet to complete a cylinder inside the tube.
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Polarizing Film
Polarizing Filter Black Wall Illusion: two sheets of polarizing film (with polarization axes oriented at 90 degrees to each other) create this illusion inside an acrylic tube. Physics magic!
Van de Graaff Generator
This device is sold as the "Static Shocker" hands on lab. Get one here for $8.95! :
From Educational Innovations: BUY NOW Static Shocker Mini Van de Graaff
The device can use an empty aluminum can for the top electrode which works- but this $9 hollow steel sphere looks and works even better- I used the 80mm sphere:
From eBay: BUY NOW Hollow Steel Sphere
Van de Graaff Generator: this miniature electrostatic generator can create potentials of more than 50,000 volts allowing sparks to jump a couple centimeters through dry air. Similar physics to the sparks created when shoes scuff on carpet, a moving rubber dielectric belt carries electrons away from the top sphere leaving it positive charged- as can be seen by the electrostatic repulsion of some Mylar strands. A small battery powered 3V motor drives the belt via the bottom pulley in this unit that costs less than $10 US.?With appreciation to @educational_innovations for sending me this device!