A Clever New Chemistry Kit Your Kid Will Actually Want to Use

The prize-winning chemistry set. Photo: George Korir

As a boy growing up in India, Manu Prakash once undertook a DIY pyrotechnics experiment that didnt quite go as planned. He managed to start a fire and burn his hand. I had an extreme chemistry experience, said Prakash, whos now a bioengineer at Stanford.

Prakash hopes to kindle some of the same curiosity about chemistry (minus the actual combustion) with a new hand-crank operated chemistry set for kids. A prototype of the device just won the $50,000 first prize in a contest for inspiring science toyssponsored by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the Society for Science & the Public. (The runners up include a kid-friendly neurophysiology kit that converts electrical signals from the muscles and brain into lights and sound see the video below).

A closeup of the device, with different colors representing different chemicals. Photo: Stanford University

The chemistry kit developed by Prakash and graduate student George Korir manages to be both cutting edge and retro at the same time. It uses microfluidic channels like those found in modern DNA chips and other molecular biology equipment to move chemicals around and mix them together. But it also uses punch cards like the ones used in 1950s era computers to control the experiments.

As you turn the hand crank, the punch card moves through the device, and the pattern of holes punched in the paper controls which chemicals mix with which, and when. Small chips with tiny fluid reservoirscan house up to 15 different chemicals. These could either be pre-loaded or filled by a teacher or parent with an eyedropper. Its purely mechanical, Prakash said. Theres no electronics, no battery.

Depending on the combination of chemicals and the punch card pattern, the device could do anything from classroom standards like precipitation reactions and titrating acids and bases to testing soil samples for toxic chemicals. Its extremely open-ended, Prakash said.

Combine the new chemistry kit with a paper microscope Prakashs lab recently developed, and youd be well on your way to doing some interesting things.

Prakash hopes such devices will provide an alternative to the more scripted interactions with science most kids encounter in the classroom. If you tell people, here are five things you can do and here are the answers you should get, youve lost them already, Prakash said. If you show them how much is not known, then theyll get hooked.

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A Clever New Chemistry Kit Your Kid Will Actually Want to Use