Do-It-Yourself STEM Projects!
Our STEM outreach librarians are sharing ideas for projects you can do yourself with items found around your house. Science experiments, paper crafts, Lego builds, and much more!
The weekly projects will be posted here and also on our Facebook and Instagram pages! Check back regularly for new and creative ideas for staying active and engaged while our libraries programs are suspended.
Homemade Rock Candy
Make a Seimsograph
Make a Model Lung
Make A Snowflake
Make Stick Figures
Crushed Can Experiment
Soda Straw Rocket
Make A Bouncy Ball
Real Pumpkin Slime
Make a Ghost
LED Flashlight
Static Electricity Butterfly
Make Ricotta Cheese
Make a Kaleidoscope
Make A Catapult
Make a Parachute
Make Edible Slime
Make a Hoop Glider
Make a Balloon Rocket
Make A Sail Car
Identifying Shapes
Create a fun shape scavenger hunt with this easy DIY STEM craft!
Walking Rainbow
Explore the science behind capillary action and defy gravity by creating a rainbow using cups, paper towels, water, and food coloring!
Exploding Colors
Blooming colors emerge with a pan of milk, food coloring, and a little dish soap! Watch our STEM Tech Buffy try out this fun experiment from @SteveSpangler!
Rube Goldberg Chain Reaction
Lego Blindfold Challenge
This engineering build uses basic building bricks centered around a specific challenge theme. What is a challenge theme, you,might ask? A set of building
criteria or parameters that encourage you to create your build.
This week’s build criteria:
- Use random bricks
- Random theme
- Blindfolded
- Time limit
Lunch Bag Explosion
Vinegar, Baking Soda, and Acid Based Reactions, Oh My!
This experiment uses vinegar and baking soda to cause an Acid-base reaction inside of a plastic bag. When sealed the gas fills the bag until it explodes!
Turn this activity into a true experiment and change some of the variables such as temperature of liquid, quantity of baking soda, and size of bag.
Lego Tower Challenge
This week’s build criteria:
- Random bricks
- Use all bricks
- Build the tallest tower
- Time limit
- Build individually, race against a friend, or build as a team
Balloon in a Bottle
ADULT HELP REQUIRED.
Watch what happens to the pressure inside the jar when it’s heated. The heat causes the air to leave the bottle, creating space for the balloon. Can you pull the balloon out of the jar?
Cloud in a Bottle
In this experiment the shaving cream will act as a cloud, and the food coloring will represent rain. When the clouds get too heavy, they release water
droplets.
Origami Fish
Make your own fish origami! You just need paper, glue, scissors, and a marker.
Magnet Maze
Make a fun maze with the power of magnets!
Chemical Reaction Balloon
Let’s play around with chemical reactions again, this time to blow up a balloon! What do you think causes the balloon to inflate?
Dancing Corn
Make dancing corn kernels by making a chemical reaction! This reaction creates bubbles that release carbon dioxide. These popping bubbles are what encourages the corn to “dance”.
Fun With Water Filtration
Did you know that natural materials such as sand, gravel, and vegetation filter the water that enters ponds and streams! Learn how to replicate it in this nature STEM video.
String Experiment
Coffee Filter Earth
Happy Earth Day! We’re using coffee filters, markers, and water again to make a love your earth project!
Coffee Filter Flower
We will use chromatography to make flowers! All you need is a coffee filter, popsicle stick, binder clip, washable markers, jar with water, paper towel,
and a pipe cleaner.
Lego Balloon Car
Design your own balloon powered Lego car. Build a car out of Legos and use a balloon to make it move. Upload a picture of your creation in the comments.
Make A Hovercraft
Make your own mini hovercraft from home! All you need is an old CD, bottle cap, thumbtack, hot glue gun, balloon, and a pipe cleaner (optional).
Tip: Use something larger than a tack to poke bigger holes in the cap, this allows for more airflow. This is what I was doing with the larger pointy object. Also, wipe down the surface where the hovercraft was hovering to reduce the spread of germs.