Hi, I am Jared. welcome to FunScienceDemos.
You know, tablets and smartphones
are pretty much everywhere, and we do not
even think about it, but we use our
finger to interact with the screen, but
if we actually do take some time and
think about it,
Scientists and engineers spent a lot of
time and a lot of thinking, a lot of
thought to make this work.
It is really a neat technology. I can draw
with my finger, or I can pick up
something called the stylus, and I can
draw with that, but we thought it would
be a neat engineering challenge to see
if I could actually design and make
something that could work just like my
finger works, or something that could
work just like this stylus works.
Now, with this challenge we want to be careful.
We want to make sure that we
do not use things that can scratch our
tablet, so we are only going to use things that are smooth and flat.
The first thing you need to do is gather up a bunch of
things, a bunch of stuff that we could
test to see if it actually works.
Here we have some examples. we have pens and a
toothbrush, and a pencil and a clip, and
safety pens, and paper clips, and brad
fasteners, and thumbtacks and nails, and
lightbulbs, and straws, and batteries, and
even a wrench.
We are going to try these out to see if
they actually do allow us to draw on our screen.
Here we go!
So let us start with our pen. I am picking
the pen because it looks an awful lot
like our store-bought stylist.
I am going to make sure I do not put the
end of the pen out, because I do not want
to mess up the surface of my tablet.
So let us try the pen. take the tip.
nothing is happening, so I wonder if the
back end of the pen will work.
flip it over, again, the pen does not seem to be working.
Let us try something else. let us try a thumb tack.
I want to make sure I am not going
to use the point of the thumbtack, I am
going to hold the pointed end, use the flat end.
Here we go!
Wow, the thumbtack works beautifully.
I wonder if a pencil will work, try the eraser end of a pencil.
Nothing. well, how about try a battery, and
see if the battery works, the back end of the battery.
Take a look at that. let us flip it over,
that end works as well, let us keep trying things.
I wonder if the binder clip works.
Hold that up.
Wow, the binder clip seems to work very nicely.
What about a paperclip? paperclip, nothing,
the paperclip does not seem to work now.
Let us try some aluminum foil.
Here is a piece of aluminum foil folded
up a little bit, get a good handle or grip on it.
What do you know, the aluminum foil works
pretty well, so now that we have a better
idea of what kind of things actually
work with our tablet.
Let us take a closer look at our stylus,
because remember, the engineering challenge
is to see if we can make our own stylus.
So we are going to pull this
stylus apart to see really how it works,
or how it is made I should say. so, I am
going to unscrew the tip of this stylus,
and what I am going to do is we are going to
zoom in so you can take a closer look.
So here is the end of my stylus, and I
can unscrew the very top part, and it
looks like I have a little ball of
rubber, and then a metal tip to the
stylus, and this is actually special
rubber that conducts electricity. That is
conductive rubber, and it is attached to
the tip of my stylus, so it seems like a pretty simple design.
I need something I can hold and then I need something at
the tip that can conduct electricity, but
it can not scratch or mess up the surface
of my tablet. Now we are going to show you
some of our designs that we engineered
and tested, and then then it is your turn.
So I think I am going to start with a
thumb tack. it seems to work really well
but it is hard to hold. there is just a
little end nib that I can grab, barely
grab, with my fingers, so I think a pencil
is pretty easy to hold, let us try the
pencil. Remember, the pencil is not working
but what if what if I take the
thumbtack and stick it on the end of my pencil?
Now I have something that is easy to hold
but will it work well. it is time to test
our very simple design.
Here we go!
Does not seem to be working at all.
So let us think about this.
I took a thumbtack and stuck it into the
eraser at the end of the pencil and it
seemed like our first design does not work at all, but remember this
is engineering, I have to go back and
change something. so what I am going to do
is change something very small, and if
you think about it, does not seem like it
would make a difference. I am going to cut
that eraser off, and try sticking a
thumbtack back in. so here I have a
pencil, the eraser is cut off. There is still a
little bit of the eraser at the end so
it can hold the thumbtack. I am going to
take another thumbtack, push it all the
way in, and now I am going to retest my design.
Unbelievable!
It seems like that very small simple
change made a big difference in my results. Now I have a stylus.
It seems to work really well, so now, let us try to
design another stylus. Remember, the
aluminum foil seemed to work really well,
but it seems flimsy.
I wonder if I wrap this aluminum foil around something more
sturdy, something like a toothbrush
that is easy to hold... So let us unwrap
the aluminum foil all the way, and
now I am just going to wrap my toothbrush.
I could take my time and make it look
pretty but now I just want to see and
test this to see if it works.
and what do you know, the toothbrush with
the aluminum foil works beautifully. I
have a stylus that I can stand up.
Those two designs worked really really well,
but let us see if we can make something a
little more complicated. to do that, I
think I am going to use a pen cap, but the
tip of this pen cap seems to be a little
pointed and it does not work, but I wonder
if I could attach something to the tip
of this pen cap. You will notice I could
even pull the inside of this pen out and
I could use the inside of this pen.
What about a cotton swab? well, cut this
cotton swab in half.
Let us see if the cotton swab works.
It does not work.
Alright, let us see if I can attach this
cotton swab to this pen cap. Let us see if I can
do something to make it work.
Now I am thinking I need a wire.
Instead of going out and buying a wire, a lot of people, a
lot of classrooms, have pipe cleaners
laying around, and pipe cleaners are
actually really interesting. All they are
are two wires that are twisted together,
and what I started to do with this pipe
cleaner is, I started to untwist them and
we are going to zoom in so you can see
what happens when I untwist the pipe
cleaners. As I unwind the pipe cleaners
all the fuzz falls away and I am left
with a really nice wire that I can use.
Now I am going to use the wire to attach
the cotton swab, hold the cotton
swab up to the pen cap, it is hard to do
this with one hand, but that is where a partner
would be useful, and all I am going to do
is wind this around the cotton swab so
now I have a nice smooth tip to my pen cap.
Let us test it out. it does not work. Now remember, in
engineering, we can make one small change
that could really affect the final
product, so I am going to change one thing
about this Q-tip. I am going to dip the
tip of it in some water.
So I have a little cup of water I am going to dip the
cotton swab into the water, squeeze out
the excess water. Now I have a damp
cotton swab I am going to hold the tip of
the pen cap, and that one simple change
made it work.
It is engineering at work.
Well if a wet Q-tip works, I wonder if
something else soft and wet would
actually work as well. So, here I have a sponge.
What if I tore off a little part of the
sponge and wrapped it in that pipe
cleaning wire like this? I will dip a
little bit of sponge into the water,
squeeze out the extra water, and all I
have is the pipe cleaner wire and the
sponge. Let us see if it works.
Unbelievable! it is almost like a sponge paint brush that works beautifully.
We had fun engineering our simple
styluses, and the cool thing is that you
can be an engineer too. if you want to
learn more about engineering and even
how interactive screens like this work,
check out our link in the video description, and do not forget to
subscribe to our YouTube channel, Funsciencedemos.
Science is so cool!
Especially when you get to engineer and build things
Thank you for watching.