Liveology Lab: Week Two...Bugs

We had another wonderful weekend of fun here in the Liveology Lab; Our theme was Bugs! On Saturday we brought back popular feature from the museums previous exhibit Robots, the Jitter bug. The Jitter Bug apart from being a dance from the WWII era is an activity involving simple motors. We took a motor small enough to run off on AA battery. Add a glue stick for propulsion, paper clips for legs and a Styrofoam body and you have a jittering creature ready for exploration. With a few accessories from the studios crafts collection and we turned our creations in to bugs.
In keeping with our bug theme, on Saturday we created Throwie Bugs. Throwie Bugs spawned from the Throwie and Blinky Bug Projects we encountered this summer. With a couple of LED lights which run of a lithium battery we gave our bugs life. Wood chips and Popsicle sticks a great for bug bodies which can be decorated using colored markers. Adding a small magnet makes the bug ready for display. These were also a neat souvenir for our guest to take home as a memento from their trip to the museum.
I have found that our more popular activities do not take long to make and can be made quite simply. It always leaves a good impression of our museum to the guest when they can literally take something away from it.