Toys in scienceland

Lynn Poole and Malcolm Davies, a teacher at Baltimore Junior College, show two children, Marsha Southwick and Richard Tillman, how toys demonstrate basic science principles. For example, key wound spring toys with gears store potential energy. An animated cartoon shows the story of Luigi Galvani, who experimented with the "animal electricity" of severed frogs' legs, and Alessandro Volta, who realized animal tissue was unnecessary for conduction of electricity and built the first battery. The children compare draw, swing, arch, and cantilever bridge designs. They also consider the fulcrum/lever principle of the seesaw and an animation of the operation of a windlass. All of the scientific principles are demonstrated by a battery operated toy crane. Mr. Davies demonstrates how "Robert Robot" works using a Bendix cable and how other toys operate with little motors originally built as tiny fans for radios but made obsolete with the invention of transistors.