Boys and Girls Science and Tech Club

The materials you need

These materials can be scrounged from an electrician and wood worker, most hobbyists also would have some of these pieces for you. If you explain what you would like to make, most adults would help you as best they can!

You need a piece of plastic electrical tube, what the trades people call 3/4 inch electrical conduit. It should be about 30 cm long. A piece of wood, same length and less than 2 cm square with the edges removed by carving or planing so that it fits easily into the plastic tube. You need a cork that fits in the tube and a string. A leather disc the size of a Canadian five cent piece, it should fit tightly iinto the plastic tube, use some vaseline to grease it. A roofing nail is perfect for nailing the leather disc to the end of the wooden stick. Use electrical tape for decoration and construction, for example fixing the string to the tube and to the cork.

We made the leather discs by using a punch, just a piece of steel tubing that we filed or ground at one end to make a sharp edge and then used this as a punch, see the piece of leather with the holes in it, the punch is beside it. But you can use scissors to cut your disc, MAKE SURE YOU HAVE AN ADULT HELPING YOU WITH THE CUTTING!!! Safety first!