Scribbling Jitterbugs

Our student interest club was inspired by San Francisco's Exploratorium, where anyone can visit the museum and tinker, play, create items with different materials.  It is amazing to see students tinker and discover new ideas and products.  We combined Exploratorium's "Jitterbug" and "Scribbling" projects and made our own Scribbling Jitterbugs.  The students used a motor, leads with alligator clips, recycled cartons, weight (unclaimed erasers or hot glue sticks), markers and a battery as the base of their prototype.  They learned about a simple circuit and how electricity travels from the motor through the leads to the battery and back.  Here are some of their creations:

After the students create their prototypes, we had some fun with it.  We had them dance around the page and race down two tracks.  The Scribbling Jitterbugs made some pretty spirals, curves, dots, and lines.  With all the students' projects combined, we made some impressive art work.