Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2019 i Click Science and Discovery Magazine for Preschoolers and Young Children

Someday I’m going to win prizes for my inventions. But now I’m too busy to invent. Take today . . . 8:00 AM I have a great idea for a remote-control robot that picks up toys and puts them away. But Dad says Charlie and I need to clean up our blocks—now. I look for the block box. Then I remember I flattened it to use as a sled after yesterday’s snow. Oops! I open the closet door to look for another box. That makes the empty shoe holder swing back and forth. The shoes are, um, being used for another project. But I get an idea. We can sort the blocks into the shoe holder. There’s a pocket for every size. 10:00 AM I start to zip up my…

Find a problem, and think about ways to solve it. Has anyone else tried to solve a similar problem? What can you learn from their ideas? How will your idea be different? How will your invention work? Draw a sketch to help you figure it out. Make a model. If you need help, ask! Try your invention. What works and what doesn’t? Make improvements, and test again. And again. Keep fixing until you’re happy. You might even get a brand-new idea. Yay! Now it’s time to get other people to try your invention too! Your turn! What will you invent?…

Only one person at a time could ride the Wright brothers’ Flyer, and you had to lie on your tummy. Now planes like this Boeing 777 fit more than 300 passengers. The Flyer’s entire flight traveled only 120 feet, nearly 100 feet shorter than the length of this jumbo jet. Like the Flyer, the F-22 Raptor seats only one person, the pilot. But it’s superfast. Built for the U.S. Air Force, it can fly nearly 1,500 miles per hour, faster than the speed of sound! NASA’s winged space shuttle Discovery didn’t just fly in the sky. It flew in outer space—39 times, more than any other spacecraft.…

Lots of kids’ shoes fasten with Velcro straps. The shoes and the strips are made in a factory. But what about the idea for Velcro? Where did that come from? More than 70 years ago, George de Mestral was out hiking. But he kept having to stop to pull sticky burs from his socks and his dog’s fur. Burs are covered with small, stiff hooks. They grab onto clothes, fur, or anything with a rough, fuzzy surface. They’re annoying, but they gave de Mestral a great idea. He made two plastic strips. One was covered with stiff hooks, like a bur’s spikes. He paired it with a strip with fuzzy loops. When the two are pressed together, the hooks hang onto the loops to keep the strips fastened. Now Velcro…

Some chimpanzees came up with a better way to catch termites to eat. They strip the leaves off a strong stick and push it into the hard walls of a termite mound to make a hole. Then they chew on the end of a different, softer stick until it shreds. It looks like the tip of a paint brush. The chimp pokes the brush into the hole it made to fish out the termites. Why make the second stick? Because more termites will grab and grip the soft brush than a plain stick. New Caledonian crows trim sticks so they can reach tasty bugs hiding in holes. Sometimes they twist twigs into hook shapes, which work better than straight sticks. They even connect short sticks into one long enough to…

How to make 1. Cut out the big square along the dotted line. 2. With the blue side of the square facing up, fold in each corner so the four points meet at the white center dot. 3. Flip the now smaller square over so its smooth side faces up, and again fold in each corner so the four points meet at the black center dot. 4. Fold the now even smaller square in half, so the left edge meets the right edge. Crease hard, and unfold. Now fold the square in half, so the bottom edge meets the top edge. Crease hard, and leave folded. 5. Slide your thumbs and pointer fingers under the four flaps, and push your fingers together and apart to open and close the tool…