Creative Corner
Homemade DIYs and experiments
The best way to learn is to DO! So, I often perform and shoot at home, easy-to-do, fun DIYs, and encourage my students to try it out. Not only does this demonstrate how textbook science plays out in real life in cool ways, but particularly during the pandemic, it broke the monotony of sitting in front of a screen and brought the 'science-lab' back into my students' lives!
Magnets in earphones
A quick experiment for my 6th graders, to explore all the places where magnets exist - our earphones, mics, speakers and even smartphones!
Multiple reflections
While learning about plane mirrors, students discover that the number of reflections formed by two mirrors depends on the angle between them!
Teabag lantern
A fun experiment that needs just an empty teabag and a matchstick to explore the concept of convection currents and how hot-air balloons work!
Soap powered boat
A DIY for my older students to tinker with the surface tension of water and alter it using surfactants like soap. The water molecules push away from each other due to the lowered tension, and the boat moves forward by Newton's 3rd Law!
Pop a balloon with orange zest
An orange peel contains limonene oil, which dissolves rubber. The general rule is 'like dissolves like', which means polar liquids dissolve polar molecules and non-polar liquids dissolve non-polar molecules. This is why oil and water don't mix - oil is non-polar, water is polar.
CD Hovercraft
How do you beat static friction? With fluid friction of course! In this DIY, I demonstrate how to use a column or air rather than direct contact to make a CD glide on a board with minimal friction, similar to how carrom powder makes a puck glide on a carrom-board!
Animations and stories, purely on powerpoint!
Most of my lessons are created, animated and recorded using just powerpoint, and the results are sometimes quite bedazzling! Here are some sessions I'm particularly proud of :
Archimedes Principle
A fun comic book style of animation to introduce the legendary story of 'Eureka'!
The Food Chain
A simple PPT animation for my younger students to see how nutrition flows from organism to organism...
Acids and Bases
A visual treat of a session to help my students revise the concepts of acids, bases and indicators!
Food Production
A kiosk type animation to introduce different micro-organisms used in food production
Games and Interactives
As a big fan of gaming back in the DOS era, creating interactive content for my kids was a natural step. Along with a brilliant team of artists and developers, I have been able to translate my love for gaming on screen via educational games to learn physics concepts.
Properties of Metals
How well do you know the materials around you? This fun treasure hunt through an ancient temple, tests wether you know which materials float, sink, shine, break, melt or allow light to pass through - a quest only the best materials scientist can win!
Net Force on a Body
Another fantastic game under our Lucas series (the Physics Hero) where we test your knowledge of the net force acting on body via a gripping quest of trapped victims, a maze, walls to be detonated, and a ticking clock!
Images formed by a Convex Lens
A group of scientists is trapped in the basement of a Zyne Corp's research centre.
You need to put your knowledge of convex lenses to good use and send a secret message via a light ray to each trapped scientist. But beware! The message must not reach the enemy guards!
Conductors and Insulators
Conductors allow heat to pass through and insulators don't. But can you identify the conductors and insulators in this quest and use them smartly to help Lucas get to the control room?
My kids particularly love this escape room format of learning science via an adventure!
Images formed by a Concave Mirror
Who doesn't find learning about image formation in mirrors boring? But what if you could use it to kill supernatural monsters?
This quest is has the benefits of both a simulation and an adventure game to teach students about convex mirrors!
The Mythbuster Series
I created a super fun activity called The Mythbusters, to break misconceptions in physics, where my students decided whether a given statement was a fact or a myth by pressing F/M on their keyboard. Here are some screenshots from it :