The Autumn Vacation Children’s Campus is a collaborative event (now in its 17th year) between the Sendai City Board of Education and the Tohoku University School of Engineering. Sixth graders in Sendai who love science and crafts are invited to experience experiments and practical training at Tohoku University’s School of Engineering. This year, Dr. Aoki, who herself is a mother of elementary school students, took the lead, and Ryota Suzuki, Mashiko, Shinohara, Kamishima, Inoue, and Ms. Takamatsu worked with 32 sixth graders over two days as assistants. They conducted an experiment to make a one-yen coin fly by applying an impulse current (an electric current that instantaneously passes electricity charged in a capacitor) to a coil and an experiment to move a model by amplifying myoelectricity (electricity generated by muscles). In the experiment to make a one-yen coin fly, many children hit the ceiling (more than 2.5m high) with a coil they had made themselves. Each time they did so, the audience cheered and got excited. Some elementary school students had the same sense as engineering students, making coils smaller than expected and sending one-yen coins flying to the ceiling. After the event, the students were given a brief tour of the engineering labs. We would like to thank Mr. Roy and Mr. Kaneko for their cooperation in giving us a tour.
For more information, please visit https://science-community.jp/event/detail.php?event_id=1048 (Yabukami)
