SPACE SPINNER- Planet Creator and Knowledge Generator!

Rotating, revolving, spinning through space, studying the planets is always fascinating. However, the SPACE SPINNER makes painting the planets FUN! The SPACE SPINNER can easily be made for under five dollars and by anyone over the age of five. ( Instructions include lots of pictures to encourage children, even beginning readers to build the SPACE SPINNER) Create the toy and create the planets and then create art for the sake of art and generate knowledge too.

FOR SPACE SPINNER- Salad spinner (Purchased from a thrift store, the day I bought this one there were two others), Duct tape, Stickers

FOR PLANETS and art for the sake of art -Paint, paper plates, paper towels

Use duct tape to cover the holes, add additional tape to make sure the holes are sealed.  If your salad spinner has a bowl without holes, skip this step.

Test for leaks.  Add water to the salad spinner, place on a paper towel, check for evidence of leaks.  

The SPACE SPINNER is ready to use, BUT why would you skip a really fun step. The dollar store has a plethora of great stickers, usually there are space themed stickers, but I decided just to use stickers left over from other projects. I love the corgi stickers on the lid. ( Look closely in the next step, they look like they are SPINNING!)

Using sticky- tac or tape, secure the paper plate to the bottom of the spinner.  Add paint. The NASA website has gorgeous photos of the planets to help you decide which colors to use.  Also for the terrestrial planets, dabbing the wet paint with a paper towel makes it look like rocks and craters.  

Put on the lid. SPIN, SPIN, SPIN. Carefully, remove  to dry. After creating all of the planets, just rinse the SPACE SPINNER and allow to dry

The SPACE Spinner is a simple toy, but it is a great spin on learning.  

First notice the gears.  A gear is a type of simple machine, a toothed wheel.  Gears are used for four main purposes: to change the direction of rotation, to change the speed, to transfer power or increase torque.  Notice that the driver gear (the big  red one in the picture and the one that you turn) is large and has  lots of teeth. If a large gear turns a smaller gear there is an increase in speed.  If you position the turning handle at “12:00 o’clock” and put a dot on the small gear at “12:00 o’clock, when you turn the knob to ‘3:00 o'clock” the small gear has already completed one rotation. 

The SPACE SPINNER requires a force, a push or a pull to get it started or to overcome the inertia of the basket  and the paint.  Hey, everything has inertia- things just want to stay put or if they are moving they want to keep moving (check out Newton's Laws) unless you give them a push or a pull.  The cool thing about the SPACE SPINNER is it demonstrates  centrifugal force which is the energy of a moving object in a circle trying to stay in a straight line when it cannot. The basket and the walls stop the paint from continuing to move in a straight line. It isn't really a force, but rather the result of inertia, but it creates cool  paint patterns.

Speaking of paint patterns.  The SPACE SPINNER is a great way to explore color theory.  The three primary colors are red, blue and yellow.  The SPACE SPINNER can blend the colors to produce a rainbow of possibilities.

Finally, the planets produced in the SPACE SPINNER will encourage the research and exploration of our solar system and beyond.  Happy spinning!