{"id":2145,"date":"2016-08-06T17:24:36","date_gmt":"2016-08-06T07:24:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gosciencekids.com\/?p=2145"},"modified":"2020-01-23T11:20:17","modified_gmt":"2020-01-23T00:20:17","slug":"pulley-loungeroom-stairs-physics-fun-kids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gosciencekids.com\/pulley-loungeroom-stairs-physics-fun-kids\/","title":{"rendered":"DIY Pulley for the loungeroom stairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

How we made our first DIY loungeroom pulley – and learning about physics<\/a> and simple machines through play.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Make<\/p>\n

We’ve been wanting to make a pulley for a while now.<\/p>\n

I’m not quite sure when<\/em> exactly the fascination started, but it’s been going for a few months at least. Every time my daughter Jewel asked if we could make one, I couldn’t help but think “Yes, we should to get onto that. We’ll need to look up what to do, and make a trip to the hardware store to gather some supplies, including one of those fancy pulley wheel thingies. But right now we have abc and xyz going on. So we’ll look into it later. Soon…<\/em>”<\/p>\n

To be honest, I’d turned it into something that felt a bit daunting.<\/p>\n

I’m not necessarily afraid<\/em> of daunting. But with other things creating busy-ness<\/em> in our lives, daunting<\/em> made it easy to keep putting our pulley off until some fictional future time<\/em> when we’d have plenty of time to research, plan and gather supplies.<\/p>\n

But then I realised… it really doesn’t have to be that complicated. By definition, pulleys are a simple machine<\/em>, after all!<\/p>\n

I realised that we don’t have to make the world’s best pulley<\/em> on our first attempt. In fact, coming up with an OK (but slightly flawed) pulley might actually open up discussions about pulley design, and how we could improve it. So, along those lines, designing an imperfect pulley is probably more educational<\/em> than coming up with the perfect pulley in the first place… Don’t you think?<\/p>\n

So anyway, that’s the back story behind our pulley design. We used what we had on hand, and we just gave it a go<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And, wouldn’t you know, it actually works! (Mostly…)<\/em>
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Suitable for<\/h3>\n

Try this for preschoolers and up. Our 6 year old daughter<\/a> Jewel helped with our pulley design and construction. Our 3.75 year old daughter<\/a> Bee wasn’t so much interested in the design, but she loved playing with the pulley to raise and lower her toys. Older kids<\/a> could try out a few design modifications to see which works better.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Loungeroom<\/p>\n

*<\/sup> Note: affiliate links to similar products are included below.<\/span><\/p>\n

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How we made our pulley<\/h2>\n

We used:<\/p>\n