Energy Stick Toy

The Energy Stick is the newest tool in experimenting with open and closed circuits. Completely safe to touch and handle, the Energy Stick features electrodes on each end of its 7.5″ long tube. When these electrodes are touched simultaneously, long-lasting LED lights inside the tube flash and the tube makes a noise. Release one or both of the electrodes and the flashing lights and noise stop. Do it over and over again… it works every time!

• Recipient of a new Guinness World Record and Best Toy at the New York Toy Fair 2015

• Use the Energy Stick to turn your body into a human conductor of electricity

• Explore the science of electricity and circuits

• It’s completely safe, and it’s a totally cool way to learn about conductors of electricity

Product Description

The Energy Stick is the newest tool in experimenting with open and closed circuits. Completely safe to touch and handle, the Energy Stick features electrodes on each end of its 7.5″ long tube. When these electrodes are touched simultaneously, long-lasting LED lights inside the tube flash and the tube makes a noise. Release one or both of the electrodes and the flashing lights and noise stop. Do it over and over again… it works every time!

That’s awesome, but did you know that you can do the same thing with an entire circle of people? It’s true! Gather up an entire class, youth group, or party to hold hands in a circle. Have one participant hold one electrode and the person next to him or her hold the other electrode. If everyone in the circle is holding hands, the Energy Stick will do its magic. But as soon as someone breaks the circle it will stop. How many people can you get to complete the circuit?

The Energy Stick looks like a toy, works using science, and makes the perfect tool for connecting scientists, students, or even employees. Implement the Energy Stick in teaching about circuits, encouraging teamwork, or forming a community… the possibilities are as endless as your imagination. Now, with a pack of 4 Energy Sticks, you can take the circuit experiments to a whole new level. Break your classroom into small groups and have them test the Energy Stick apart from the others. What new experiences can you come up with?

What’s Included?

• 1 individually packaged Energy Stick

What Does It Teach?

The Energy Stick is a great toy to explore the science of electricity and circuits. The Energy Stick’s sensing circuit, is so sensitive that it can detect even a very small amount of electricity that travels across your skin! It’s completely safe, and it’s a totally cool way to learn about conductors of electricity.

Put one hand on the top and the other on the bottom of the Energy Stick and the flashing lights and sound maker let you know that you’ve completed the circuit. Try it with friends! Invite everyone to join in the fun by holding hands and forming a large circle to test their conductivity. The Energy Stick is a great visual aid and hands-on science tool that teaches young scientists about open and closed circuits as well as conductors and insulators.

Human Circuit – Conductors and Insulators

Holding hands in a circle has never been this electric!

The Energy Stick makes quite the “buzz” when you’re using it. To the untrained eye, it appears to be a plastic tube with a jumble of wires inside and two silver bands at each end. Well, those silver bands are actually electrodes. All the wires on the inside? They’re a solid state sensing circuit, tone generator, sound transducer, battery power supply, and LED lights. The perfect use for the Energy Stick is as a simple, yet fun, tool for learning about continuity and circuits.

So how does it work? We thought that you’d never ask. Don’t try to take the Energy Stick apart! It’s securely glued together and you will have to destroy it to open it. You can see the major parts through the clear body of the tube. The guts of the stick include a circuit board, two button batteries, an integrated circuit, three light emitting diodes (LED), a piezoelectric transducer, a transistor, and two electrodes.

• The batteries are connected in series (head to toe) to form a small power supply. Each button battery (cell) supplies about direct current (DC) electricity. Since the cells are so small, they provide very little current (milliamps), and therefore, very little power (milliwatts). Three volts at low current is a level generally considered safe.
• Inside there is a circuit board with an integrated circuit, or chip. It contains tiny transistors, resistors, diodes, and other electronic parts that produce the noises and the flash pulses.
• The light emitting diodes (LEDs) are like small red, blue, and green lights, except that they have no filament. The lights are produced by brightly glowing junctions on semiconductor chips.
• The piezoelectric transducer functions like a speaker – it’s what makes the noise. It consists of a very thin slice of quartz mounted on a brass disk. When electrical pulses are applied to the quartz, it vibrates, and that vibration is what we hear as sound.
• Transistors are electronic switches. In this case, the integrated circuit provides the sound waves, but they’re not powerful enough to be heard by the transducer. So, the integrated circuit tells the more powerful transistor to turn on or off, and it controls the transducer.
• Electrodes are simply the electrical conductors. They are the two metallic strips that you touch to complete the circuit.

All of these elements of the energy stick remain inactive because the electric current cannot flow continuously, that is, until you hold onto each end with both hands.  Human bodies conduct electricity, so by holding onto both ends of the stick, your body is closing the electrical circuit needed to let the current flow continuously and activate all of the above elements.

Take It Further

The Giant Circuit

Have a large group of friends form a circle and hold hands as you explain how a circle compares to a circuit. Open the circuit by letting go of the hand of a person next to you; everyone else hangs on. Grab a silver ring on one end of the Energy Stick while the person next to you grabs the other one. The Energy Stick flashes and buzzes because the circuit is complete again! Should anyone break the circuit, the detector stops. Explain that switches and breakers are nothing more than devices that either connect conductors to turn something “on” or separate them to turn something “off.” By the way, how many people were in your circle? Why not try 10 or 20 or even 50?!