Hacking an iPod with Water

I was walking through the office yesterday when Nathan J. Bellomy pulled me over. Amongst other things, Nathan coordinates the YouthCaN group at the museum. (YouthCaN is a youth led organization that uses technology to inspire, connect and educate people worldwide about environmental issues).

In any case, Nathan was dripping water ON TO one of the program’s iPods. It turns out he had heard of something and wanted to try it out – placing one drop of water onto the iPod camera to turn it into a magnifying glass! It looked great.

Working with some water in a container – labelled “Plankton from Central Park” – he first took photos, like this, using a very small yellow spoon:

And then made this video where you can watch the plankton swimming about:

Great idea for a simple, inexpensive way to hack existing tools for educational use. I look forward to learning if this makes it into the classroom and, if so, what the youth produce.