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TopClicks
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Teens
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Cool Stuff
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Aibo, the Robotic Dog - Meet Aibo, Sony's robotic dog. It has amazing lifelike movements! According to the product information, it is also capable of artificial intelligence: it thinks, feels, and "grows up." Learn about what it does, how it works, and how you can get one. (Hint: You'd better have lots of money.)
Ancient Bristlecone Pine - Imagine a tree that is nearly 5,000 years old! Back in the 1950s (that seems like a long time ago, but not when compared to the age of the tree), a man named Edmund Schulman was studying bristlecone pine trees in the White Mountains of California. He and fellow researchers discovered "Methuselah," which was found to be 4,723 years old. That was in 1957. Today, it remains the world's oldest known living tree. Read more here.
Ask Dr. Universe - Do frogs sleep? Why are flowers colored the way they are? Why does electricity shock? These are some of the questions answered by a cat named Dr. Universe. She hunts down the answers to questions from people all over the world. Many times she has to pounce on a University expert to help her understand the question as well as the answer! The results of her labors are here.
Ask Science Theatre Archive - Why does ice float? Where does helium come from? Why do we lose our tans in the winter? How does a match work? These are just a few of the hundreds of questions answered at this site, sponsored by Michigan State University.
Build It & Bust It - Engineers figure out how to build bridges that stay up, tunnels that don't collapse, and buildings that rise to the sky without tumbling down. At this site you can try building your own joint and beam structures and then test them for stability. If you have a hard time, just go to the Testing area and load someone else's bridge and apply forces to it. Will it stand up or go falling down, falling down? This site was created by students for the ThinkQuest competition.
Carousel! Your Carousel Information Center - Everyone has seen carousel horses, but did you know that some carousels have frogs, roosters, and fantastic creatures like sea monsters on them? Find out about the history of carousels, see some detailed wooden horses, and listen to carousel music--guaranteed to make you smile! This site tells you where antique carousels can still be found and ridden (look in the History section, under Census). They are something of a rare species, since many old carousels have been taken apart and the horses and other figures have been sold. Maybe you can help save an old carousel in your town.
Castles of the United States - There are lots of castles and castlelike buildings in the United States. King James the Castlefinder and his lady, Princess Patricia, enjoy going to Renaissance festivals, and along the way they like to collect castles. They have quite a list here; is there a castle located near you? Look in the listings for your state. If the castle has a home page, you will find a link to it as well.
Children's Creative Theatre Guide - Take a trip through time as you explore the history of theater from the ancient Greeks till today. If you're unfamiliar with theatrical terms, there is a handy glossary where you can discover, for example, that the apron is the part of the stage that projects towards or into the auditorium. There are some drama warm-up exercises you can try, and when you're ready, your family can put on the skit that's provided. This site was created by students for the ThinkQuest Junior competition.
Children's Television Workshop - Sticker World - Everybody likes stickers--big ones, little ones, animated ones. Yes, that's right, at this site, you can collect online stickers that do things. Lions roar, flowers bloom, dragons breathe fire, test tubes boil, machines run--you get the idea. You begin with a limited number of starter stickers. Create your own free home page and decorate it with your stickers. Visit other kids' pages to "trade" stickers with them and play games. Collect points by visiting other kids' pages, and then "buy" more stickers for your collection. It's fun, free, and fabulous!
Cool Robot of the Week - NASA cares about robots enough to honor the "Cool Robot of the Week." Check past awardees for information on remotely powered environmental research aircraft, news on the winners of the annual RoboCup, and a photo of how MIT students turned a campus dome into a replica of R2D2, among many others!
Cye - Cye is a gadget lover's dream: a robot that learns the lay of your house, and can perform tasks ranging from vacuuming to serving hot chocolate at your Christmas party.
DeeT's 70s Page - Take a ride on the time machine and step back into the 1970s. Some things haven't changed much. Kids watched Sesame Street and The Electric Company on television, and back then Gilligan's Island was being shown for the first time. If you'd like to see these and lots of other `70s stuff, Dee T's is the place to be.
EduStock - EduStock is designed to explain what the stock market is and how it works. It includes tutorials on how to pick good stocks, information on a select group of companies, and a free 20-minute-delayed stock market simulation. Check it out and learn how to make your fortune. This site was the best entry in the 1996 ThinkQuest contest for educational Web sites created by teens.
FBI Kids & Youth Educational Page - The Federal Bureau of Investigation has had a long history of helping to solve crimes in the United States. At their Web site you can find out about fingerprinting, polygraph (lie detector) testing, DNA analysis, and other methods of crime detection. You'll be fascinated by the information on real-life crime dogs. They look for explosives, perform search and rescue operations, and also can be trained to sniff out drugs. Check the games section for a fun little concentration matching challenge.
Fremlin's Forgery: The Art of Blacksmithing, Horseshoeing & Metal Art - Not only can this journeyman blacksmith shoe a horse, but he can also craft a beautiful rose out of metal! How does he do it? Online tutorials reveal some of his secrets, and while you're oohing and aahing over his work, you can hear audio of his hammer ringing on the anvil.
French Connection: ThinkQuest Junior Project - See what happens when a class of American kids decide to visit a similar group of kids in France. To prepare for their adventure, they trade ideas and descriptions of their lives online. It doesn't work out exactly as planned, but the Web site gives you a window into the two cultures and how they are alike and yet different. This site was created by students for the ThinkQuest Junior competition.
Frisbee Dog Club - National Capital Air Canines Homepage. THE Washington D.C. Area Frisbee disc Dog Club. Where the Fur Come to Fly.
Going, Going, Gone - The Way Things Used to Be - Have you ever had to make your own soap? In the old days, that's what they did. They saved scraps of fat until they had enough, then cooked the fat until it was melted and smooth. They saved ashes too, and they poured water over them to release the lye. Then they added the lye water to the rendered fat. They cooked and stirred for several more hours, and the soap was then poured out into molds and left to harden. Those days are gone, because now we all buy scented soap in the store. What other things are different now than they used to be? Check out a fascinating list of them here.
Graffiti Walls - Let's be honest. Graffiti is ugly: it makes buildings and signs look hideous. On the other hand, it is kind of fun to be able to leave a mark somewhere. The problem is that graffiti makes whatever is marked look awful. Now, through the wonder of the Internet, you can leave your mark and never worry about defacing property. It's at this site, and there is one for kids aged 11 and younger and one for kids aged 12 and up. Spray paint, scratch, do what you like. It's designed for fun with no unsightly mess to clean up! The walls are closely monitored for appropriate content to keep the site enjoyable for all. You have to register, but it is free.
Grossology, the Science of Really Gross Things - Welcome to Grossology, where all of your gross questions can be answered. You can look at the gross fact of the moment or research grossness. You can even get your virtual deploma by taking Gross 101& 201. Search for a gross fact and find out about tons of gross things. Oh, and did I mention that there are recipes for "Fake Snot," and "Fake Blood"? Grossology has all this and more, but you may not want to go there if you want to continue to believe that you are the only living thing in your bed ;-)
Hot Air Balloon Cyber-Ride - Up, up, and away! What happens when you take a balloon ride? This little adventure will let you experience it all on a virtual trip. Will you fly over the barn or make for that big mountain in the distance? The choice is up to you. Remember, although champagne is traditional at the end of a balloon journey, you'll have to stick to a nonalcoholic beverage!
Interactive Origami in VRML - This little demo allows you to start with a sheet of paper, walk around it, get close to it, and then run farther away. If you click directly on the paper, it will advance to the next stage of paper folding. It's not the greatest exhibition of origami we've ever seen, but it does provide nice practice for your VR driving skills.
International Schools CyberFair - The International Competition encourages schools around the world to share. There are also Monthly Activities for teaches to use in the classroom. Come join the fair or just come see the past entries and winners.
Learn2.com - Do you know how to use chopsticks, or clean a freshly caught fish? Could you use a lesson in putting a golf ball or breaking in a new baseball mitt? How about tips on folding a shirt or cleaning up a stain? This truly great site will teach you all of the above and more.
Legends - Visiting this site is like entering a wizard's storeroom, stocked with lots of neatly labeled jars full of strange herbs, exotic powders, and unusual amulets. There are some books left on the dusty shelf, and they are about people like Robin Hood, King Arthur, and Peter Pan. Pirates, fairies, and even artists like William Morris are represented here. Shhh--did you hear someone coming?
Lego Mindstorms - The Official Lego Mindstorms Web Site has the latest official news and information on Lego Mindstorms, a line of products that lets you build and program robots that do what you want.
Leo Ussak Elementary School - These kids go to a cool school--we really mean it's cool there. This school is way up north. They live in the Northwest Territories, above the 60th parallel. At this site, you can learn about Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit people, and you can get a lot of information about what life is like in an Arctic village. Although the school is very Net-savvy (read about how they videoconference with a school in Hawaii) and modern, they honor the elders and their traditional ways; you'll find a good deal of cultural information here. For example, what kinds of foods do kids eat there? "Here in Rankin Inlet you can eat caribou (a lean, nutritious, delicious meat), delectable arctic char, lake trout, or grayling. In the fall you can pick ripe, juicy berries growing all over the tundra. You can sample seal, mukta (yes it's true, Inuit do consider it a delicacy to eat whale blubber!) and goose. You can also have a Pizza Hut pizza or Kentucky Fried Chicken if you want!" And how do people sleep when the sun stays above the horizon all "night"? "On June 21st, it is light almost all of the time. People sometimes put cardboard, plastic garbage bags or aluminum foil on their windows to help make it dark enough to sleep. It is darkest on December 21st when the sun rises at 9:45 in the morning and goes down at 2:45 in the afternoon. Sleeping is no problem then!"
Mission to Mars - This exemplary site won the 1998 ThinkQuest competition's Math and Science category, entirely built by kids. You can learn all sorts of information about Mars, the Red Planet, here at Mars Academy. But the real fun starts when you can outfit and fly your own mission! You have to know a lot to design your mission, so you'd better go back to the Academy and make sure you did all the assigned homework. This site takes a long time to explore, and your mission may take many visits to complete.
Pegasus' Paradise - A lot of these ancient heroes and mythological beasts have really strange names: Bellerophon, Daedalus, Odysseus--how do you pronounce them? This ThinkQuest Junior site, created by kids, solves that problem. Not only can you look up animals, heroes, villains, and gods and find out all about them, but you can also hear their names pronounced! There's also a neat game that asks you to match the Greek gods with the names of their Roman counterparts.
Pirates! @ Nationalgeographic.com - Can you solve these National Geographic adventures? You'll have to read clues and figure out which pirate, which ship, and which treasure star in each of the mysteries. Beware: if you get it wrong, you may have to walk the virtual plank and start all over again! There are also links to additional materials, books, and links about pirates.
PlanetZoom.Com - A kid's web page that's really for kids! An award-winning resource for parents, teachers, and especially kids! Explore the six lands of Planet Zoom or find adventure on Outpost Z2!
Pumpkin Masters - Welcome to Pumpkin Masters, the company that helps you and your family create great jack-o'-lanterns and wonderful Halloween traditions. With our simple carving method you can produce the awesome pumpkins pictured on this site and have fun doing it. Put away those unsafe knives and start making pumpkin masterpieces!
Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circus - Welcome to the official Web site of The Greatest Show On Earth! Whether you're looking for current show dates or online fun and games, they hope you'll take some time to experience all the miraculous wonders of their state-of-the-art silicon cyberspectacular -- designed to dazzle and delight Children Of All Ages!
Secret Language - Psssst! Want to send a secret message to a friend, one that nobody else can possibly decipher? Head on over to this page at San Francisco's Exploratorium, where you can print out a copy of some substitution cipher wheels. Put one inside the other, twirl them around a little bit, and you're in the spy biz!
So You Want to Make a Car... - Have you ever wondered how cars are made? This site takes you through all the steps, saving you from walking the 16 miles of conveyors that transfer car bodies from start to finish. That's more than 230 football fields in length! At this auto factory, over 260 programmable robots install, weld, and paint in order for those shiny new vehicles to roll off the line. Look over their shoulders (or whatever robots have) and see how cars are built. There are also some great links on car history, solar cars, and race cars.
Stories and Fairy Tales Theme Page - If you're looking for some stories to scare your friends as you sit around the campfire, try here. Other tales include fairy tales, Native American legends, and folklore from other countries. There are also many spiritual teaching stories, including some from the Bible as well as the Sufi tradition, among others.
Superflag - Learn all about the world's largest flag! Its dimensions are 505 feet by 255 feet, and it weighs 3,000 pounds. See it draped over Hoover Dam, and you can get an idea of how big this U.S. flag really is. Other parts of the site show the flag's other appearances at sporting events and other display opportunities. Give this flag a really big salute, and wonder where they might find a flagpole to fly it.
The Great Circus Parade Train - It runs only once a year and creeps along at 10–30 miles per hour, but it's certainly the most spectacular train to grace Wisconsin's tracks. Circuses have used locomotives since the 1870's, so the Great Circus Train is really nothing new. It's an authentic re-enactment of old-time circus operations. In fact, dapple-gray percherons are used to load and unload the flatcars, as was done before the invention of the internal combustion engine. The Circus World Museum craftsmen even built working replicas of the special tools used for horse and train work in the 1800's: runs, jacks, and pulleys that link horsepower to load. Using horses is extra work for everybody, but it keeps the past alive. Even the train's cars bear the names of famous circuses, illustrating how they might have looked in the late 1800's. The cars were purchased from an actual circus (World of Mirth Carnivals) and research later revealed that some of the cars spent their early years with some big-name shows like Sparks, Hagenbeck-Wallace, Tim McCoy's Wild West and Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey. When it's not in use, the Circus Museum keeps its train on a railroad spur built decades ago by Ringling Brothers for this very purpose.
Water Weapons of Mass Destruction - Want to know which water guns are the best? Check out the fan reviews at this site. You'll also be treated to water fight strategy, "war" stories, and maintenance tips. The most important thing is to empty those tanks and depressurize after each water fight. Otherwise, mildew will grow and clog the pipes, and your gun will turn into a colorful but useless plastic object.
You Can with Beakman and Jax - Put on your thinking cap and visit this site. Discover the answers to important questions, like "What are fingernails made of?" and "Why do I hear weird sounds at night?" There are some neat animations, too. For example, check out "How the Internet Works."
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