Yesterday was spent in the basement building a generator. My son is entering a science fair at his high school and came up with this idea of creating light from a magnet. Simple, I thought, but wait... there's more.

Building the generator, it turns out, was the simple part. He cruised the net and found plans, complete with measured drawings no less! A trip to Radio Shack for the electronic parts (wire and a bulb) and to Lee Valley Tools (my favourite store here in Ottawa) for the magnets and we were done our shopping. He carefully cut out a strip of cardboard to fashion an open ended box. Around this, he wound the wire. Once the nail was driven through, lamp attached and magnets stuck on the nail, he had his generator.

The hard part is going to be the purpetual motion gizmo he wants to attach to the end of the nail so he can have constant light... Something about opposite poles of magnets and a wheel of them. I'll keep you posted.