Designing and making Kaleidoscope

Objective:

 * To understand ‘reflection’
 * Designing a toy and using it to understand a science principle.

Materials required:
Three mirror strips, white plastic (translucent), rubber band, scissor, pieces of bangles of different colour.

Pre-requisites:
(a) able to identify reflecting surfaces.

(b) Properties of light

Instructions to do the activity:
1. Take three similar mirror strips. Tie these strips with rubber bands to form a triangular tube.

2. While trying the strips together, remember to keep their reflecting surfaces facing each other inside the tube.

3. Cover one end of the tube with white plastic (translucent) with the help of a rubber band.

4. Now put some small pieces of bangles of different colours inside the triangular tube.

5. Cover the other end with a piece of paper and make a hole in the centre.

6. Hold the tube so that some light enters through the translucent paper and look at the pieces of bangles through the open end.

Kaleidoscope is ready. Shake the kaleidoscope lightly to rearrange the bangle pieces and look at them again. What do you see?

• What do you observe? Can you explain why this happens?

• Why do you think we made a triangular tube of mirror strips?