Tech Camp Blog

Workshops in Bedford for Home-Educated Students

In October and November we enjoyed running a couple of different workshops on light. The first one was “Light, Lasers & Illusions”. During the presentation the children discovered how our eyes can be tricked, how we can burst balloons with different coloured lasers, and how a drop of water can be turned into a simple but impressive microscope.

We also introduced them the power of UV light and concepts of fluorescence and phosphorescence. During this workshop they also developed their own photography using a special paper and UV light.

The second workshop was related to fibre optics. As an introduction we explained to them some basic concepts such as reflection and refraction.As always we wanted them to see these phenomena by themselves which is always better than a presentation to get them interested. That is why we prepared some demonstrations and experimentedusing lasers, mirrors and some flour to see what happens to the laser beams. They made a useful periscope to spy without being seen and a fibre optic torch that they can use as a light or communicate using Morse code. They also enjoyed a live show using our Tesla coil, which needs fibre optics to work because of it is impervious to electromagnetic interference.