I'm looking for some new projects to start with my son! We love anything laser related, as we just got done making a 1w blue burning laser. Now we are on the hunt for some new projects! Some of things we have built include burning laser, a laser light saber, led light saber, small robots, tesla coils, etc etc. we would love anything similar to these, or anything with lasers! My son is 9, I'm trying to get him more into doing fun projects like these that we can learn from as well as have fun doing it. I'm open to any and all projects you might have!
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Looking for new projects
- Thread starter Jt1325
- Start date
Yes I do, gloves & etc as well. Thank you though
Holograms?!
I know they aren't as "cool" as they were when I was 9 years old, but they are still pretty cool. There are starter kits that are pretty easy, but then you can really dive deep into that one.
Or build a spectrograph. Again, there are cheap kits available on amazon/ebay, but you can really get deep into that as well.
If you are both looking for electronics-related projects, you can get into robotics and use lasers to have the robot find distances or even map out a room.
There's also the "laser harp" that is pretty fun, using low powered lasers and photodiodes or CdS cells to form electronic "strings" that you "pluck" by obstructing the beams to create tones through a digital circuit. It's a fun project, but probably has little actual practical application besides being fun and teaching electronics.
I know they aren't as "cool" as they were when I was 9 years old, but they are still pretty cool. There are starter kits that are pretty easy, but then you can really dive deep into that one.
Or build a spectrograph. Again, there are cheap kits available on amazon/ebay, but you can really get deep into that as well.
If you are both looking for electronics-related projects, you can get into robotics and use lasers to have the robot find distances or even map out a room.
There's also the "laser harp" that is pretty fun, using low powered lasers and photodiodes or CdS cells to form electronic "strings" that you "pluck" by obstructing the beams to create tones through a digital circuit. It's a fun project, but probably has little actual practical application besides being fun and teaching electronics.
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Holograms definitely are a very cool project, it might be a little complicated, but there are kits for it that might be suitable.
You could transmit sound through lasers.
One simple laser experiment I find fascinating is optical trapping. Using fine diamond powder (or a sharpie tip) one can introduce it into the focus of a medium power (several hundred mW) single mode laser, if it works the laser will suspend the particles in air for a several seconds. Though in order to appreciate optical trapping it does require understanding a bit of the physics magic that is happening.
You could transmit sound through lasers.
One simple laser experiment I find fascinating is optical trapping. Using fine diamond powder (or a sharpie tip) one can introduce it into the focus of a medium power (several hundred mW) single mode laser, if it works the laser will suspend the particles in air for a several seconds. Though in order to appreciate optical trapping it does require understanding a bit of the physics magic that is happening.
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Creating or even just adding a set of galvos for a laser that can be controlled would be very interesting for your son as you can do kalidescope type designs along with other patterns
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You don't even need the complexity of galvos for spirograph stuph. Two mirrors spinning on variable speed motors will get you very nice lissagous patterns. Add a third and you can go full spirograph.
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very true, galvos offer more options but with a couple spinning mirrors you can do a lot
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RGB module. Some hall sensors to sync the colors to the motors. Good fun!