Is This Fantastic, Or What?
.

Yes, there it is in all it's glory... L's Van de Graaff generator, ready for the science fair. Last night the blue pulley suffered catostrophic failure in the midst of experiment #3. Instead of throwing packing peanuts high in the air, it threw rubber bands all over the room. But for about 10 minutes, it worked! We got a fabulous -once in a lifetime type- shot of an aluminium cake pan flying off the generator dome. Ah, the wonders of electrostatic repulsion. :)
L added a bit to his report about the pulley failure, and what he thinks went wrong.
His VDG is on display until Sunday. After it comes home, we'll build a better pulley and try it again.

L was worried about bringing a broken project to the fair, and we talked about it. The hubby-man and I both pointed out that failed experiments are just as valuable as successful ones. Sometimes they're more valuable, considering what you learn when experiments don't go as expected.

All in all, I view the generator project as a roaring success. It worked long enough to conduct experiments. L learned a lot in the building of it. And now he has an electrostatic generator to call his very own. Once we get it working again, he wants to try to ceate St. Elmo's fire. The hubby-man is really looking forward to that one, and so is L.