DIY POP IT

Make endless toys with your own hands!

Safe­ty pre­cau­tions

Warn­ing! Only un­der adult su­per­vi­sion.

Equip­ment

  • thick card­board;
  • foami­ran;
  • hot glue;
  • clear tape;
  • col­or­ful pa­per;
  • can­dy tray;
  • scis­sors;
  • pen­cil;
  • ruler;
  • small cylin­dri­cal glass­es.

Step-by-step in­struc­tions

MEL Sci­ence Pop It: Make 2 frames from thick card­board: cut out the same pat­tern of round holes in each one. Pre­pare a piece of foami­ran for each hole. Glue them all to one of the frames and glue the sec­ond frame on top. Use a hairdry­er to shape the bumps: heat each mem­brane and use an egg to mold it into the right shape. Your Pop It is ready! Try to craft a key­chain this way!

Сandy tray Pop It: Draw an out­line of a frame on thick card­board to fit a can­dy tray. Cut the frame out and glue the can­dy tray to it. Now you can pop it!

Process de­scrip­tion

An elas­tic bub­ble has two sta­ble po­si­tions. If you ap­ply too lit­tle force to the dome, it will re­turn to its orig­i­nal po­si­tion when re­leased, since it is clos­er to it. By in­creas­ing the pres­sure and push­ing the dome clos­er to its sec­ond sta­ble po­si­tion, you make this lat­ter po­si­tion more com­fort­able for it and force it to make the switch. The mem­brane jumps abrupt­ly to the sec­ond po­si­tion and stops, cre­at­ing a pres­sure drop – a sound wave.

Make even more cool toys with a MEL Kids sub­scrip­tion!

Try it