Energy Ball at Steve Spangler Science

This is a great little device to use when describing open and closed circuits. This 38 mm (1.5 in) ball contains two small metal electrodes. When the electrodes are touched simultaneously, the Energy Ball flashes and makes a buzzing sound. A great group activity is to have the participants hold hands. Have one participant touch one of the electrodes while another person at the other end of the circle touches the other electrode. Two people can touch the electrodes and make the Energy Ball buzz as long as everyone around the circle is holding hands. Recommended for children ages 4 and up.

What's included?

Energy Ball
Activity Guide

Product FAQ

How many people can “connect”?
This is a fun experiment to try. We gathered up the entire staff of Steve Spangler Science outside, held hands in a big circle, and it still worked! As soon as we came back inside, the nerd side came out of us and we started hypothesizing about how many people it would take for the ball to not work. If such a simple activity gets a handful of adults into a discussion about their beliefs, imagine what would happen to your little scientists. You wouldn’t believe some of the ideas that they would come up with to support their hypotheses. It might also be a great activity to see who admires who and a great excuse for little lovebirds to hold hands.

Warning - Small Ball Choking Hazard

Valentine's Day Science

andrea metz, chalfont, pa - November 1, 2009

This user gave 5/5 stars

Halloween spooky eye

Thanks to Steve Spangler, I'm know as the science mom. My son's 4th grade class just finished studying electricity in science so it was great to bring in the eyeball (a bloodshot eye that I drew on the ball)for Halloween. We got as many as 26 kids to make a closed circuit and they really thought it was cool when one person "opened" & "closed" the circuit! I'm sorry I didn't video their excited reaction! My 6th grade son's class had fun with it too, but I never asked the girls goup to join hands with the boys group, 'cause girls are icky :),so the most we got there was a 14 person closed circuit! Time was also a factor, because I had the OOZING pumpkin (elephant toothpaste)experiment for them to do too. I wrote a short story to coorespond to the oozing pumpkin, then everyone got to "ooze" their own mini pumpkin. I have photos of that too if you're interested. thanks for all the cool stuff!