A cow eye is very similar to a human eye. What better way to understand how your eye works than to take apart a cow eye? Check this out!
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Our Extreme Scientist, Jesse, talks about the chemistry of disappearing inks. She has a little surprise for Chris near the end.
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If you fill a plastic bottle with a small amount of liquid nitrogen, seal the bottle, then let the gas expand, you get an explosion. If you pour 30 gallons or so of plastic balls on top of the bottle before it explodes, you get a Ballplosion! Check it out!
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With a head of red cabbage you can have lots of fun doing some kitchen chemistry. Red cabbage has a natural acid/base indicator that you can extract and test all sort of things to see if they are an acid or base.
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Hot air makes these metal pipes howl with noise.
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A rocket powered by the combustion of ethyl alcohol. In the end it’s all about action and reaction and rocket nozzle design.
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What happens when you torch a towel soaked in a flammable liquid? This result may surprise you.
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Using liquid nitrogen, which boils at -320 degrees, we make a batch of tasty ice cream in less than 2 minutes.
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The Flame Tube (aka Rubens’ tube) allows us to “visualize sound waves” based on the gas pressure inside a steel tube. Read more

Our hovercraft is pretty simple in construction. A circle of plywood, a plastic tarp, a coffee can lid and a leaf blower. Check out this video for more information.

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A tremendous amount of energy is released when you allow hydrogen and oxygen gas to combine to form water. Check out this demonstration.

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We are celebrating Chemistry Week with all sorts of activities you need to check out!

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The self carving pumpkin is featured in our special Spooky Science demonstration this weekend as we get geared up for Halloween. Read more

Halloween is just around the corner and making a batch of edible blood is a great way to spend the day in your kitchen with the kids. If you’re gearing up for Halloween and are in need of some fake blood, there is no reason to go out and pay a lot of money for this kinda thing. You most likely have everything you need at home to whip up a batch of blood. Read more

Using the seaweed extract, sodium alginate, and a solution of salty water you can create something that looks like worms in seconds.

Normally alginate is used as a food thickener for things like jellies, jams and pie fillings. That doesn’t mean you can’t play with it to make noodle-like “worms”  and tiny spheres that look like caviar in just seconds.

We will be featuring this activity in the Science Studio during the month of October as part of our Spooky Science event. So stop by and ask a Team member for a demonstration.

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During the month of October visitors will be able to dissect an actual cow eye in the science studio at Imagination Station. This is an amazing experience that you have to check out. Learn more in the video below or in this recent Toledo Blade article about our Spooky Science event. Read more

Let me set this up for you … it’s Labor day weekend and you’ve fired up the grill with some burgers, brats, or whatever grilled goodness you can think of. You head inside and grab the bag-o-buns and (gulp) notice a few small greenish spots on the surface.

While no one is looking you face the critical decision, do you pluck off the little green spots and serve the buns up, or is it time to head to the store for a fresh set? It’s a hard call, but keep this in mind – the colorful spots you see on food are just the surface spores that allow the mold to reproduce. Just like plants, mold has roots below the surface that can travel deep into the food.

Because the colorful spores on the surface of your food are just part of the mold, scraping or cutting this part off of your bread or bagel won’t save you from eating a mouthful of fungus. While you probably won’t die from eating fungus, keep in mind that foods that are moldy may also have invisible bacteria growing along with the mold.

The colorful mold you see on the surface of food is just the tip of what is going on inside.

Most molds are harmless, but some are dangerous. Some contain mycotoxins. These are poisonous substances produced by certain molds found primarily in grain and nut crops, but are also known to be on celery, grape juice, apples, and other produce. These substances are often contained in and around the threads that burrow into the food and can cause allergic reactions or respiratory problems.

Are any food molds beneficial?

Yes, molds are used to make certain kinds of cheeses and can be on the surface of cheese or be developed internally. Blue veined cheese such as Roquefort, blue, Gorgonzola, and Stilton are created by the introduction of P. roqueforti or Penicillium roqueforti spores. Cheeses such as Brie and Camembert have white surface molds. Other cheeses have both an internal and a surface mold. The molds used to manufacture these cheeses are safe to eat.

What to do if you see mold on your food?

The USDA has a nice chart about how to deal with various foods that are moldy. Check it out for all the details. It breaks down into the two obvious options – Don’t Eat vs. Eat.

Don’t Eat – throw these out if you see mold

• Luncheon meats, bacon, or hot dogs, Cooked leftover meat and poultry, Cooked casseroles, Cooked grain and pasta, Soft cheese
• (such as cottage, cream cheese, Neufchatel, chevre, Bel Paese, etc.) Crumbled, shredded, and sliced cheeses (all types), Yogurt and sour cream, Peanut butter, legumes and nuts, Bread and baked goods.
• Jams and jellies (The mold could be producing a mycotoxin. Microbiologists recommend against scooping out the mold and using the remaining condiment.)
• Cheese made with mold (such as Roquefort, blue, Gorgonzola, Stilton, Brie, Camembert)

Eat – after cutting off the mold

• Hard salami and dry-cured country hams (Eat them. Scrub mold off surface. It is normal for these shelf-stable products to have surface mold.)
• Firm fruits and vegetables (such as cabbage, bell peppers, carrots, etc.) as well as hard cheeses are OK to eat if you remove the mold.  Cut off at least 1 inch around and below the mold spot. Keep the knife out of the mold itself so it will not cross-contaminate other parts of the produce.

Remember while you’re preparing all this food, removing mold, etc. that you should be washing your hands and food prep surfaces often. Check out what can be growing in and around the surfaces of your house in this Imagine It! video segment. In short, avoid the molds and wash your hands – often!

The age of the universe is estimated to be 13.7 billion years. The United States national debt is currently just over 14 trillion dollars. We hear these HUGE numbers thrown out in daily conversations (yes, I have daily conversations about the age of the universe and so should you…) but does anyone really have a grip on what a BILLION or a TRILLION of anything really looks like? Read more

Seriously, just watch the video. It is amazing!. If you don’t get chills within the first 15 seconds of this video, well, I don’t know, but you should! If you don’t you’ve gotten too jaded by CGI effects in movies. This is so amazing because it’s a REAL LIVING CREATURE!
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Magnesium metal is used in some fireworks to create brilliant white sparks. Those sparks are created as the metal reacts with oxygen in the air.

While carbon dioxide is generally used to put out fires, it turns out that magnesium can also react with carbon dioxide to produce a brilliant flame. Read more

It’s hot outside. Really hot. But is it hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk? It’s only a matter of time before you will see someone on TV trying to make this happen. Most likely they will not be successful.

The problem is that an egg needs a temperature of 158°F to become firm. In order to cook, proteins in the egg must denature (modify), then coagulate, and that won’t happen until the temperature rises enough to start and maintain the process. Read more

A roll of mentos candies and some cola are all you need for some messy fun when it’s hot outside. It’s become a classic experiment to suddenly release all the carbon dioxide gas from a two liter bottle by dropping the candy inside. Read more

The journal Perception reports on an interesting visual effect called the “Flashed Face Distortion Effect.” Apparently an undergraduate student was working on setting up an experiment that required a series of faces all scaled in such a way that the eyes of each image aligned. As he flipped through the images, he noticed that some of the faces began to appear distorted in unusual ways. Researchers are now working on experiments to shed more light on exactly what is happening in the visual processing system to create the effect. Read more

We talk about how fireworks get their colors everyday in our combustion demonstration at the science center. Something we don’t talk about is what the actual firework shell looks like and how it gets into the air. PBS’s NOVA website has some great information about fireworks, how they are made, the elements used to make the colors and an interview with a Chemistry Professor about fireworks in general. Read more

Oobleck is a suspension of cornstarch and water that can behave like a solid or a liquid depending on how much pressure you apply. Try to grab some in your hand and it will form a solid ball in your palm just until you release the pressure, then it will flow out between your fingers. Materials that behave this way are classified as non-Newtonian liquids because their flow properties are not described by a constant viscosity. Read more

How do they get the colors in fireworks? They add various metals to the combustible materials. Read more

Not only do we get WTVG meteorologist Jay Berschback to lay on a bed of nails, we also smash a cinder block on top of him. Check it out! Read more

Using just air pressure – not compressed air – you can accelerate a ping pong ball to amazing speeds. Fast enough to rip through a soda can.

The cannon is a long PVC tube loaded up with a ping pong ball. To fire it off, both ends are sealed with a single layer of clear tape. Next, a vacuum pump is used to remove most of the air from the cannon tube. When the tape nearest the ball is ripped open (punctured by a knife) 14.7 pounds per square inch of air pressure rushes in and slams into the ball. With no air molecules in front of the ball, it can accelerate to speeds of nearly 300 miles per hour.

Of course if the ball does not rip through the can, you can always rip a soda can in half this way.

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The space bag is a very thin black tube that you fill with air on a sunny day. As the bag warms in the sun the air inside also warms and slightly expands. Just like a hot air balloon, the bag begins to rise. Read more

We live in a ocean of air, in fact, we live at the bottom of that ocean of air. All those miles of air above us end up exerting a force of about 14.7 pounds over every square inch of our bodies. We take it for granted since the force per area (pressure) is the same all around us. Things start to get interesting when there is an imbalance in that pressure. What better way to find out what an imbalance in pressure feels like than to vacuum-pack WTVG-13 weekend anchor Christina Williams? Read more

This week Dr. Roy Glover talks about the exhibition in general. Dr. Glover is the Chief Medical Director for the exhibition and has been working with the exhibit since it began touring. Read more

Acid/Base indicators make cool things like disappearing ink possible. But, how do you get disappearing ink to fade as fast as possible? You saturate it with CO2 from a fire extinguisher…Dave Holmes from WTVG-13 had no idea what was coming. Read more

If you make some soapy bubbles filled with a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gas and then add a flame, what do you think will happen? You get an insanely loud detonation of hydrogen and oxygen. Seriously, you have to be there to really experience the amount of energy released in this reaction. It’s like a gunshot going off in your hands! Crazy Loud. Read more

Is there a better way to celebrate Mother’s Day than to freeze some flowers in liquid nitrogen? Probably, but flash freezing flowers and then watching them break like glass is pretty cool. Read more

Making an Air Cannon is super easy and you probably have everything you need at home or in the garage right now. Learn how it’s done. Read more

For the holiday we are exploding eggs filled with hydrogen gas. Check it out. Read more

When you combine a steel tube filled with a flammable gas and sound waves you can create a pretty cool display of the sound pressure inside the tube. Check this out.

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A 30 pound cement block supported by eight raw eggs.

Can an ordinary egg support the weight of a 30 pound cement block? That was the question that Jeff and Joe, two of our Team members, were investigating this past Saturday in the Science Studio. They discovered that a single egg is not up to the task of supporting the brick. It just made a big mess on the bottom of the brick when it was crushed. (Actually, a visitor at the Science Studio insisted we try just one egg to see what would happen.)

So the question is how many eggs would you need to support the brick? After cracking a number of eggs in the name of science, the smallest number of eggs they could get to support a block was eight. Check out the video to see how they did it. Read more

A “naked egg” is an egg that has no shell. Let me say that again, an egg with no shell. This is not something you normally run across and even when I show a naked egg to someone they often just don’t get the idea that the shell is gone – yet the egg stays intact. You might want to check out the anatomy of an egg to get an idea what we are dealing with. Read more

As part of our Egg-streme Science month at Imagination Station I’ve been poking around the internet and books for some cool experiments and information about eggs in general. I came across this really nice breakdown of the various parts of a chicken egg over at edinformatics.com and have duplicated the information below. I’ve always wondered what those white stringy things (Chalaza) are in my eggs when I make an omelet and now I know not only their name, but also what their function is inside the eggs! Read more

Ripping a pop can in half with your bare hands is not all that hard if you know a bit of chemistry and a little about how soda cans are fabricated. The key, is the plastic liner that coats the inside of the can. In order to protect the aluminum can from the carbonic acid in sodas, can manufacturers coat the inside of a can with a plastic liner. The liner also protects the inside of beer cans as well.

Now, I suppose, if you were really strong you could rip any can in half with your bare hands. In order to make it a for-sure thing for this demonstration, I used a bit of chemistry knowledge to etch the can.

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It’s an interesting question. Before 1982, diapers relied on the absorbancy of cotton, paper and sponges to hold the, um, liquid in place. Unfortunately, those materials can only hold about 20 times their weight in water. The average diaper doesn’t really weight that much, so 20 times not very much equals leaks. Read more

It’s March Madness and we are getting crazy ourselves by dunking a basketball in super cold liquid nitrogen. What happens when you cool a basketball down to 320 degrees below zero? Watch the video to find out. Read more

Why explode an egg? Besides the expected “well, just because we can” answer, there’s actually some interesting science of combustion in the process. Hydrogen needs oxygen to combust, or burn. How it undergoes combustion depends on the amount of oxygen present. Read more

Can you balance an egg only on the vernal equinox? Of course not! you can balance an egg on its end any day of the year. Check out what else you can do with a few eggs at home. Read more

Amazing Milk is a fun “play with your food” moment. Milk is full of tiny clumps of fat. If you add a dash of dish detergent and some food coloring to a plate of milk something interesting starts to happen. Read more

After the massive earthquake near Japan this morning one wonders if it’s possible to build an earthquake-proof building? The answer is yes and no. There are of course, engineering techniques that can be used to create a very sound structure that will endure a modest or even strong quake. Read more

We have just passed through the 2011 peak flu season according to Google flu trends as well as the Center for Disease Control. This reminded me that washing your hands is one of the simplest things anyone can do to stop the spread of disease. It’s also one of those things that most people don’t do as often as they should. I thought it would be interesting to test some common surfaces around an office for bacteria. Even better would be to test some spots at abc13 – the host of our Imagine It segments. What do you think would have the highest bacterial count – the toilet seat or the microwave start button? Read more

OK, I have to admit that we really, really like the classic elephants toothpaste demonstration at Imagination Station.  Combine a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and dish soap with a catalyst like sodium iodide and you get a foaming tower of, well, foam!

We like it so much that we do it everyday as part of our Method to the Madness demonstration. We have featured it on our weekly science segment Imagine-it on WTVG13 and on an episode of WTOL AM Saturday where we re-branded it “Dinosaur Toothpaste” because of the fossil exhibit we had at the science center at the time. Heck, we have even done it inside a pumpkin for Halloween where it squirts out the face to make a foamy mess. Read more

As part of Engineering Week 2011, we challenge local meteorologist Jay Berschback to build a stable tower on our Earthquake platform exhibit. Using only foam noodles and some cross-bracing he must construct a stable tower at least 5 stories tall. Find out if he can meet the challenge. Read more

Acid-base indicators provide a great platform for a variety of at home chemistry experiments that anyone can do. One of the simplest indicators that is readily available is red cabbage. It turns out that the colored pigment that gives the cabbage it color is a natural acid-base indicator. The red color of cabbage comes from a molecule called anthocyanin. This naturally occurring dye changes it color depending on the the presence of an acidic or alkaline (basic) substance. Read more

Find out what kinds of glass auto engineers use for the windshield and side windows of your car – and how they break. Read more

What happens if you take away all the air pressure from the outside of a marshmallow? It gets bigger. Normally, 14.7 pounds per square inch of air pressure is pressing on the outside of the marshmallow – and 14.7 pounds per square inch of pressure is pressing outward from the tiny air bubbles inside the mallow. Read more

We use our eyes to view our world. While our eyes are amazing detectors of light, they only “see” a tiny slice of the whole picture of electromagnetic energy that is all around us – we call what our eyes see “light.” Read more

This Sunday you may just need a break from the day-long preshow coverage of Superbowl 45. So grab the kids, or just yourself and a bowl of chips, and have some fun learning a little bit of the science behind all those tackles, passes and touchdowns – it’s a great learning lesson. Read more

Design a Newspaper Tower

Saturday, August 13, 2011
10am-5pm

Visitors are invited to participate in this Engineering Challenge, brought to us by The Blade. Teams must build an 18-inch tall tower constructed solely from newspaper and tape that must support the weight of an ordinary baseball. Once completed, the tower must ‘Pass the Test’ – that is, towers will be placed directly in the path of a fan and must remain standing to be considered eligible. All supplies will be provided. Towers constructed off site are eligible to win as long as they pass the test. Prizes will be awarded to the engineers of the three lightest towers that pass the wind test. Read more

Check out these NASA images of what they are calling one of the largest storms to hit the US since the 1950′s. NOAA also has a great image to give you a sense of the size of the storm taken with the GOES-13 satellite. Some are calling the huge storm a “snowpocalypse“, while others are saying, “This is not a typical winter storm, this is one for the history books,” – Thats from Edward Fenelon, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Romeoville, Ill. How much snow did  you get? Let us know in the comments below.

Many iron fortified cereals contain tiny iron fillings. I’m talking about plain old elemental iron, the kind you would find in a nail, train or car, in your breakfast cereal. It turns out that this form of iron is ideal for a cereal additive. Read more

Our newest Learning World, Engineer It!, is now open. This 5,000 square foot space features 25 new exhibits about engineering in three topics areas: Wind, Water and Structures. Read more

Sloan combines history and science when talking about the origin of the modern breathalyzer – the Drunk-o-meter. Just after prohibition the need for a quantitative way to assess the drunkenness of an individual resulted in the Drunk-o-meter which then lead to the modern breathalyzer. Read more

Imagination Station will be open on Monday, January 17th, 2011 from 10am to 5pm.

This will be your last chance to visit Hubble Space Telescope: New Views of The Universe at Imagination Station.

This exhibition celebrates the achievements of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope by magnificently displaying and describing the wonders of the night sky. New Views of the Universe contains images and data taken from Hubble of planets, galaxies, black holes and many other fascinating cosmic entities. Surrounded by illuminated photographs of the cosmos, visitors are inspired to learn about the universe and space exploration through interactive games and exhibits.

The old phrase, “What’s your sign?” may elicit an answer, but is it the right one?

It seems the net is abuzz about a “new zodiac” after comments in the Minneapolis StarTribune by Professor Parke Kunkle, a board member of the Minnesota Planetarium Society. Kunkle points out that because of something called axial precession (a 26,000 year wobble in the earths axis of rotation caused by the moon-earth gravitational attraction) the signs of the zodiac are now offset by about one month. Of course he’s correct, but it’s not really breaking news. Read more

For today’s Imagine It segment, I thought it would be fun to talk about how your brain processes the information that your eyes send it. The Trizonal Space Warper is a pretty cool tool to explore this because it illustrates how the neurons in your brain can become fatigued when you send them a continuous input. Read more

May 6-8, 2011

Imagination Station is pleased to be welcoming the unique artistic talent of Michelle Stitzlein, from Baltimore, Ohio, as she leads visitors in creating a permanent art fixture for the science center, made of bottlecaps! She’ll be asking visitors to assist her, both in collecting plastic bottlecaps over the next several months and then in constructing the bottlecap mural, the weekend of May 6-8.

Thank you to everyone who collected bottle caps!

We had thousands of plastic bottlecaps donated over the past couple of months. Without your help this project would not have been a success! Thank you again!

The mural is not complete yet, we still have lots of caps to screw in place. So come on down and help us create this unique art piece. Michelle, the artist, will be on hand the weekend of May 6-8, 2011 working with visitors to complete the project.

Funded By:

Food calories are a measure of how much energy is contained in the food item. A very graphic way to visualize how much energy is in a handful of food is to burn it and observer the flame. We try this with a handful of cheesepuffs and Total cereal. Read more

This week Sloan and Jay create a couple of foam volcanoes using a solution of concentrated hydrogen peroxide and some dish soap. Using super concentrated solutions allows the reaction to happen so fast that the foam literally hits the ceiling in our demonstration theater. Check out the video. Read more

Making ice cream at home is actually pretty easy to do and you don’t need any fancy equipment if you’re just making small batches for fun. This is a great Saturday afternoon activity. You’ll be surprised at how good it actually tastes. Just keep in mind this is not low-fat low-calorie. Read more

Methane is a flammable gas that is lighter than air. Often fire fighter have to worry about not only flames that come from the ground, but also dangerous flammable vapors that are lighter than air. Read more

What could be more cool than making a lava lamp with stuff you already have? With just a few items from your kitchen you can create a bubbling version of a lava lamp. To get started gather up some vegetable oil, water, food coloring, a plastic bottle and some effervescing (the bubbling kind) antacid tablets. Read more

Oobleck is a suspension of cornstarch and water that can behave like a solid or a liquid depending on how much pressure you apply. Try to grab some in your hand and it will form a solid ball in your palm just until you release the pressure, then it will flow out between your fingers. Materials that behave this way are classified as non-Newtonian Read more

Did you eat a few to many chips loaded with a spicy dip? Perhaps just too much during the Game (Ohio vs. Michigan) and are in need of a bit of antacid relief? Check out this video to see just how an antacid works to reduce the acid  level in your stomach. One thing I forgot to mention is that Milk of Magnesia is also a laxative … so with all meds read the label before consuming…! Read more

While it looks like Sloan is changing water into wine, what’s really taking place is a chemical clock reaction. Two reactions take place at the same time – reaction number one is trying to create a dark liquid, reaction number two is consuming a chemical needed to turn the liquid dark. After a few seconds the second reaction runs out and the liquid turns an inky black.
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A little alcohol in a 5 gallon water jug will combust in an interesting way when a flame is dropped inside. Read more

Super absorbers were developed in the 1960′s by the Department of Agriculture as a product to spread over crops to even out the drench-drought cycle. This class of polymers is capable of absorbing up to 400 times their weight in water. This amazing ability to hold liquids in a gel eventually led to their use in baby diapers, plant soil, grass seed and those fun “grow creatures” toys that swell in water. Read more

What happens if you tilt a room’s floor at 25 degrees, but keep the rest of the room (door frames, windows, etc) at the correct perspective? We call it distorted gravity – or maybe that is more what it feels like. Your eyes and ears get conflicting signals and that can lead to only one thing – a queasy stomach. It’ something  you just have to experience in person to fully appreciate.
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What would happen if you created a chemical reaction inside a carved pumpkin that generates a whole lot of foam? Watch the video to find out. Question is, what reaction would you choose? We thought it would be fun to use a 35% solution of hydrogen peroxide (that’s more than 10 times more concentrated than what you have at home) and some soap to catch the oxygen gas that is generated. Read more

Solid carbon dioxide is often called dry ice because at normal atmospheric pressure it never forms a liquid state. Instead of changing from a solid to a liquid and then to a gas, it jumps right from solid to gas. This is called sublimation. Dry ice is very cold, around 109 degrees below zero on the Fahrenheit scale. That’s cold enough to freeze flesh and cause frostbite which it why we always wear gloves when handling this stuff. Read more

Sodium Alginate is derived from seaweed and is used as a gelling agent in foods like pie fillings, jellies and even green olive stuffing’s. We think it’s just fun to play with. When you add the alginate to a calcium chloride salt solution it turns into a jet nearly instantly. You can make tiny spheres (or caviar) if you drip it, or if you squirt a solid stream it will turn gel into a “wormy” tube filled with a liquid interior.
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The Boyo is a unique experience – you become much like a yo-yo where you do all the moving. It looks simple enough, you add some energy to the overhead flywheels and then they pull you off the ground a few inches. If you keep adding energy by pulling on the handles, eventually you will be pulled 13 feet off the ground. It takes a bit of practice, so don’t expect to get to the top in one, two or even six pulls. Read more

Flammable liquids can generate invisible vapors that are also flammable. These vapors can be more dangerous than a liquid spill because they are invisible and can travel a distance to an ignition source. Imagine you spill some paint thinner in your basement, as you clean up the liquid, the vapors can move across the floor to a pilot light. As the vapors ignite the flames will flash back to the liquid spill – and you! Read more

These ceramic tiles protect the space shuttle as it renters the Earth’s atmosphere at speeds over 17,000 miles per hour. They are capable of withstanding temperatures as high as 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit as the orbiter returns to the surface. A secondary purpose for the tiles is to protect the shuttle from the alternating heat and cold experienced while orbiting the earth. They are amazing insulators! Read more

Grab a lawn chair and head outside over the next few nights to watch the Perseid meteor shower that happens every year in August. The meteors are actually debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle. The debris trails behind the comet as it travels through it’s orbit. Most of the debris is somewhere around 1,000 years old. Read more

Saturday, June 12 – 10:00 am – 5:00 pm
Sunday, June 13 – Noon – 5:00 pm

It’s wuff out there for a puppy. So we’re lending a paw to all our 4-legged companions. We’re hosting a special weekend at the science center that’s dedicated to man’s best friend and the people who love them. Read more

This broadcast and web discussion about STEM Education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) originally aired Thursday, May 13 on WGTE HD and streamed live on Knowledge Stream. Imagination Station participated in the live web discussion as an example of an informal education partner.

Our region’s next generation needs to be prepared to live and work in a world where an understanding of science and technology can make the difference between success and failure.  A local commitment to increase the focus on STEM Education will make today’s students more globally competitive as working adults, and Northwest Ohio will thrive.  WGTE Public Media, WBGU TV27, UT3, Ohio STEM Learning Network and the National Governors Association, presented a special televised Town Hall on Thursday, May 13.

Imagination Station hosted a Solar Energy Expo facilitated by Honors and AP Physics students from St. Francis de Sales High School on Saturday May 15.  The students lead hands-on activities with small groups of children and helped them learn about solar energy.  The activities explored concepts such as how cloudiness affects the output of a solar panel, different ways of connecting several panels together and what the advantages of these types of connections are, and Read more

Animation vs. Animator - the full screen version.

Alan Becker created this flash animation in 2006. Alan best describes his creation as, “An animator faces his own animation in deadly combat. The battlefield is the Flash interface itself. A stick figure is created by an animator with the intent to torture. The stick figure drawn by the animator will be using everything he can find – the brush tool, the eraser tool – to get back at his tormentor. It’s resourcefulness versus power. Who will win? You can find out yourself.”

It took three months to create his animation. He later followed up with a sequel, Animation vs. Animator II.

Let us know what you think, or if you’ve come across other interesting animations, pass the links on to us in the comments below.

Meat-hungry dinos would be among the world’s strongest biters today

A researcher at the University of Bristol has calculated the biting strength of various carnivorous dinosaurs. Using the concept of mechanical advantage which is the factor by which the jaws of the dino skull multiplies the force put into it by it’s jaw muscles. It’s nice to see that basic science concepts that you learn in 5th grade are actually used by scientists everyday.

I found it interesting that the dino with the greatest bite strength was not a dinosaur at all, but the now extinct shark called Carcharodon megalodon. It could bite with a force of 18.2 tons! Check out the original article.

Understanding the Insta-Hole

The Law of Cartoon Motion

Certain bodies can pass through solids which are painted to resemble holes; others cannot.

This ‘trick of the eye’ inconsistency has baffled generations.  However, it is known that whoever paints the hole on the floor’s surface to trick an opponent will certainly be the one who ends up falling through this theoretical hole.  This is ultimately a problem of art, not of science.

In the Animation exhibit, now at Imagination Station, visitors explore animation from concept to finished product—from storyboarding, character design, and drawing techniques, to movement, timing, filming and sound. Larger-than-life graphics of popular Cartoon Network characters provide a colorful backdrop to the exhibit, which also explores the history of animation and features a screening room and a cartoon museum.

See more about Animation at Imagination Station.

Animation activities and exhibit information from OMSI, the developers of the Animation exhibition.

Print out this Insta-Hole coupon to receive one FREE Kid Admission with the purchase of one Big Kid admission.

Don’t miss our weekly activity in the Little KIDSPACE Science Studio.  A trained team member will read an exciting, interactive story to your child and then everyone gets a chance to complete a fun activity to take home and display proudly!  This is a great new addition to your child’s Imagination Station experience. Read more

January 30 – May 2, 2010

Imagination Station’s 2nd traveling exhibition, Animation featuring Cartoon Network, opened on January 30, 2010 to great anticipation and attendance. Throughout its stay, we welcomed more than 60,000 visitors, hosted a variety of artists, including: Tim George, Mr. Etch-a-Sketch; Comic Strip Artist, Brian Houdashelt; Children’s Illustrator, Cyd Moore; Cartoon Characters including: Dora the Explorer, Ben 10 and Scooby Doo, and Special Events like the Domino Draw, The Big Draw, Disney on Ice Workshop and Astronomy Day.

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Making a shrunken head for Halloween is fun and it only takes a few items to get started. To create a shrunken head you need just a few items. Gather up an apple, granny smith, red delicious, whatever, pretty much any apple will work. The basic steps for making a shrunken head from an apple are: remove the skin, coat with lemon juice, carve features, soak in saltwater, let shrink for 2 weeks, decorate with optional features. See it’s so easy anyone can do it. Plus if you really mess up you can always eat the apple! Read more