This semester I’m teaching science for pre-service elementary and early childhood teachers (translation: students who will one day teach pre-school through third grade). I also have another future middle school teacher working on a senior thesis with me. All these future teachers have my brain busy trying to find a toy for everything. My one student is actually on a mission to find Lego models for all the different space telescopes, and the folks over on BAUTForum are helping her.
So far they have helped her find:
We are still looking for Hubble, Chandra, and Compton or GLAST. If all else fails, there is a need Lego CAD that allows one to design anything, and it could be really fun to use 🙂 While building Lego satellites isn’t all that educational, it does teach little kids the parts (solar panels, tube, antennae) of a space craft, and it teaches them to follow plans and build things. All good things. And Legos are just fun 🙂
Along the way, one of the folks who goes by “EvilEye” sent along a picture (above, credit Stellafane) of a Lego telescope built by Alan Rifkin of FAR Laboratories. It is a completely functional telescope, and it is way cool. It has me inspired to try and figure out how to build a reflector this way. I need to find some middle schooler looking for a science fair project, and inflict my Lego vision on them (The trick is finding one who has rich parents – I can’t even afford enough Lego’s to do this!)
I just had to share. This is one of the coolest silly functional things I’ve seen in a long time.
What can I say? I want one!