All Steamed Up!

What's more fun than running a steam engine across the living room floor?  Well, if you ask my two little kids and one great big kid at heart, they would answer you "not much!".  And thanks to Josh's eighth grade science project, we had a fun time doing just that last Friday night.

When Josh was in middle school, he received a steam engine and experiment kit as a Christmas gift.  The steam engine has fuel blocks and working mechanisms that make the engine actually function!



The white thing Josh is holding up is the fuel block.  He lines up a few in the little tray you can see sitting on the board behind the steam engine.



And then he pours water into the water tank...



...oils in the pistons....




....and finally lights the fuel blocks.




The lit fuel block tray is set under the water tank to heat the water and make steam.  You can see that the steam engine is blocked in with a block in the front and behind the back wheel to keep it from taking off as the steam is checked every so often to see if it has built enough to work.




Meanwhile, Caleb is flipping out because he's afraid its going to be really loud.  No matter how hard I tried to explain it, he had convinced himself that it was going to be loud and scary.



This is the back of the steam engine with the viewing window of the water tank.  Obviously you can't see it boiling in a picture, but in real life you can watch it as the heat builds up and finally makes the water boil.

Once the steam builds up, Josh can regulate how much steam is used to run the fly wheel.  The loop can then be hooked from the fly wheel to a series of gears to create enough energy to light the little light bulb you see here!



Caleb was starting to catch on that all this was for fun.  He was willing to come closer and observe, but when we blew the whistle (yes, it even has a steam engine whistle!!!) he insisted on plugging his ears.




Once the steam was good and built up, we took it off the blocks and let it run on the floor.  By this time, both kids were thoroughly enjoying the special treat.



It took some nerve, but Caleb eventually got the guts to operate the moving engine.  Now, it doesn't go that fast at all, but he knows that there is a fire keeping the water hot and that was a little scary for him.  But after watching Josh long enough, he finally caught on to how to regulate the steam and how to use the steering wheel.



If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times... whatever Caleb does, so does Sarah Rose!  She was right in there, doing as well as Caleb by the end of the evening!





I think its great that my kids enjoy the same toys that their father did when he was a boy!