No, it's not in there.
Those are fun to climb on, but they're not it either.
Here we go!
Welcome to Nanoday, Shane!
The UVA Engineering Department put on an open house with games and demonstrations.
Naturally, Shane and I went.
Sleepy and hungover engineering students entertained my kid and tried to teach him various things (Ok, the only sleepy and hungover student was this guy. He woke up when we came to his table, but, to be fair, Shane and I were the only people who had wandered up to the second floor. He could have been bored!).
Shane built a seed carrier to drop down a floor.
A student on the ground timed the fall and put Shane's carrier into a bucket elevator.
I don't expect that Shane understood what a nanotube was, but he enjoyed the balloons!
Another big hit was the Macro-Micro-Nano twister.
Macro was purple. Micro was green. Nano was orange.
Shane got all twisted up!
Then he played memory.
The next big hit was molten tin. The demonstrators poured it on a wheel so that it came out thin and malleable. Then they let Shane dip the metal back into melted tin to see it disappear (with me holding his elbows to prevent disaster).
Automated nano-assembly went right over Shane's head, but Legos! Some had magnets!
By the time we went through the exhibits that caught our eye, the giant nano-balloon-tube was completed.
I couldn't help but notice: Shane's almost always in pictures with female students. There were plenty of male students with demos, but he never seemed to pick any of those tables (save the molten metal safety hazard).
After a couple hours, we were both ready for home. I finally talked Shane into trying the oobleck outside.
The first couple of times we walked by, Shane refused. It was cold, so I didn't push the envelope.
However, with the sun up I didn't want Shane to miss out. There was some initial hesitation, but a courageous 10 year old girl sold him on an oobleck bath.
Final science experiment of the day: Can pine needles pop balloons?
Conclusion: Yes. Yes, they can.
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