847 Compass needles
Magnetic Domains. There are 847 compass needles attached to a disc. Because they are so close together, they influence each other. With a magnet, the compass…
A riddle for intelligent and patient people
Puzzles for the sharp-minded and patient. Trickier than it seems: these eleven puzzles with strings, boards, and rings are challenging. One of them cannot be…
A Table with loose Legs
Three, two, one – stable. How many supports do we need to stabilize a tabletop? Without screws, without glue, of course. Sharp-minded (and experimental)…
All Triangels are the same
Central projection: Using various triangular shapes to cast congruent shadows onto a patterned wall with equilateral triangles.
Angled Mirrors
Many polygons. Two mirrors positioned around an axis at various angles: a simple way to create shapes with many sides (polygons). At certain angles,…
Ball in a Bowl
Shorter path = faster to the goal? A question that occupied the best mathematicians three hundred years ago. This competition compares two parallel tracks,…
Beam Bridge
The simplest form, but not the most stable. This bridge demonstrates the forces acting on a straight beam when it is loaded and supported only at its two…
Break the code
Qxpoa gvp pbuu: Cryptography. An encrypted text appears on the monitor. The challenge is to decrypt it with as few errors as possible. But there are over four…
Bridge the Gap
Building bridges is not so easy - especially when you are not allowed to use nails, screws or glue! Here you only have nine identical wooden blocks at your…
Catenary Arch
Building solid – like the Romans. An arch as a delicate structure: reconstructing what the Romans perfected. Understanding what gives their elegant arches…
Chance Happenings
Capturing randomness – with dice. Four faces of these dice are white. The other two faces show a red circle. After each roll, the dice with the red circle…
Changeable Weather
How do you determine the average value of numerous individual measurements? Here, the average monthly rainfall can be determined experimentally.
Christmas Balls
Round shapes, angular gaps. The spheres are indeed round, despite the triangular gaps between them. Can this really be? If a sphere is missing in the…
Conic Sections with Laser
Ellipse, parabola, hyperbolic branch, or hyperbolic arm: Cross-sections of a plane through a geometric body. In this case, a cone. A laser beam circling the…
Conway Cube
Test your spatial imagination. Assemble nine pieces to form a cube. Three 1x1x1 cubes and six 2x2x1 cuboids. It seems simple, what the renowned British…
Coupled magnetic sculpture
Transmit motion without contact. Magnets are attached to the spokes of several wheels, which influence each other. If you turn one of the wheels, the…
Dancing iron particles
«Dancing Trees» 81 electromagnets are covered with fine iron dust. The electromagnets can be controlled either via a sensor surface or via prepared programmes…
Diced Snake
At some point, it’s probably going to work... All sixty dice lined up: what number shows the head of the snake? Now move forward by that number. Roll the…
Disappearing Ghost
The ghost disappears. Where did it go? The ghost reappears. Where did it come from? A puzzle made of three parts: one base element, two pieces to swap. How…
Distorting faces
by Niclas Roy A whole row of screens each shows the viewer's face. If you hold a magnet to the screen, the electrons in it are deflected, distorting the image.
Do they fit in the Box?
Too big. Or is it? The cube fits into the glass cube. Clear enough. But the pyramid, the star-shaped object? Too big. Some objects appear larger than they…
Drawing on the Move
Elegant circles, spirals, and ellipses. Above a disc with variable rotational speed lies a ruler. If the pen is held still along the ruler, circles are drawn.…
Efron’s Dice
Loaded dice. The numbers on the faces of these four dice are nothing like what we’re used to. And they really get your brain working. The first player picks…
Electromagnetic cannon
Which ring flies the furthest? The electromagnetic cannon consists of a coil with an iron core that can be abruptly energised at the push of a button. If…
Electromagnetic puppet theatre
Electricity moves magnets. Three stations each contain four coils whose frequency and phase shift can be adjusted. Figures with magnetic legs can be placed on…
Electromagnetic railway
Electric current produces a magnetic field. A track with a magnetic toy train on it runs through a large coil. At the push of a button, current flows through…
Electrostatic dance
Polystyrene ballet. A plastic plate is rubbed against a leather surface and thus electrostatically charged. The plastic plate is then placed on a copper…
Elliptical Mirror
This έλλειψις has only one goal. At one focus of this mirrored ellipse stands a rotating periscope. At the other focus, a colored cone. Looking at the…
Emotion detector
Measuring skin resistance. The skin resistance is influenced by the subject's emotions: the stronger the emotions, the lower the resistance. Here, the skin…
Encoding Text - Caesar’s disc
« Caesar’s Wheel » Encoding and decoding with two rows of letters that can be shifted relative to each other. Even in Caesar’s time, information was protected…
Equal Times
Meeting – in the middle. On this track, a tautochrone, the time it takes for a ball to reach the lowest point is always the same. If we release two balls,…
Escher’s endless Staircase
Ascending downwards. Luckily, this infinite staircase doesn’t exist in our world. It leads upwards endlessly, without ever reaching a top. Similarly, its path…
Falling tiles
Braking with Eddy Currents. Various metal plates are dropped between two rows of magnets. The magnets generate eddy currents in the plates that slow them…
Feeling current
How strong is the effect of electricity? Here you can feel the sensation of electric current. To do this, you place two fingers on two contacts and increase…
Find the Fish!
Fits, from head to fins. The fish, the wire frame next to the image, fits in only one spot into the pattern with the "water lilies." The pattern with many…
Generator track
A magnet generates electric current. A track with a magnetic toy railway on it runs through a large coil. When the toy track is moved in the coil, a current…
Gothic Arch and Flying Buttress
With pillars and arches. Like in a cathedral: this is how forces act in a structure with a tall pointed arch and a system of buttresses. What significant…
High-voltage slide
Triboelectricity. A slide and its platform stand on several large insulators. Anyone who slides down is electrostatically charged. If you then touch the…
How big is a Million?
Incredibly large. 999,999 yellow balls in a glass cylinder – and one black one. Where is it? What is a million? Through the search, a concrete task turns an…
How many Smarties?
Estimate – and verify. The many colorful Smarties are tempting – and they spark curiosity. How many are there? Many, very many, maybe thousands. How many…
Human electrical circuit
Current flows through you. Several cubes with metal surfaces are placed near a larger cube. If you connect the surfaces of the cubes with your body, current…
Hyperbolic Slot
Straight rod passes through a curved slot. Impossible, that’s the first thought. But the experiment proves otherwise. The straight rod moves without contact…
I am a function
Three steps forward, one step back. The point on the screen moves along. The curve displayed on the screen is the target. Goal: move closer, move away, and…
Ink Fractals
Fingers grow fingers. As the ink spreads between the two acrylic plates, beautiful fractal patterns form. Finger-like structures that resemble ink…
Inner magnetic structures
Magnetic Domains under the Microscope. With the help of a microscope, the magnetic structures ("domains") inside a magnetisable platelet are made…
Kneading with magnets
Attractively repulsive. In a bowl there are two strong horn magnets and a large quantity of small iron discs. The iron discs become magnetised near the…
Leonardo’s Bridge
Clever: How Leonardo da Vinci builds a lightweight bridge. No screws, no nails, no ropes; just a few planks. From these, he creates a sturdy bridge. An idea…
Lights ON
Seven lights, seven buttons. The goal: make all seven lights turn on – or none at all. Pressing a button affects three lights and causes a state change: from…
Loose Stone Bridge
Brilliantly strong and simple. Loose stones, assembled in the correct order, form a bridge capable of bearing weight. Even in a small format, it can support…
Luminous sculptures
Three dimensional circuits. Two contacts are attached to each of three stations, which can be connected with the help of magnetic rods and iron balls. The…
Machine with Concrete / Machine set in Stone
The Eternity Machine. Twelve worm gear mechanisms for eternity! An impressive example of mathematics illustrated mechanically. With each successive gear, the…
Magnet in copper bar
«Floating in Copper» The two copper rods hang in space like a split log. Between them is a magnet that can be made to float with the help of a second magnet…
Magnetic balance
Floating through diamagnetism. Underneath a large ring magnet is a transparent box with a small magnetic cube and a base made of graphite. At exactly the…
Magnetic building blocks
Unconventional building blocks. There is a magnet in each of the different building blocks. Depending on the position of the poles, the building blocks can…
Magnetic diversity
«Visitor Magnet» There are many electromagnetic objects in this large box. Everyone can explore for themselves where the phenomena can be found and how they…
Magnetic repulsion
North pole against north pole. A slight change in the distance between two magnets has a major effect on the force between them. The closer they come, the…
Misty Messages
Two patterns, one image. From a distance, the surface on the plate looks like grey fog. But when we place a second plate exactly on top, an image is…
Möbius Cube Loop
Infinite puzzle. The Möbius strip, assembled from cubes. The building blocks are cubes and corner pieces. The faces of the cubes are painted on their…
Moebius Strip
Loop without end. Most things have two sides, but not everything. Among the exceptions is the Möbius strip. When we ride along it with a small train, we…
Moiré
It’s all a matter of perspective. Black point clouds: this impression is created by two perforated plates mounted one behind the other at a certain distance.…
Mozart’s Dice Music
Compose like Mozart. Roll the dice 16 times, select 16 bars, and voilà – a composition: as simple as that, according to Mozart. Following his idea, composing…
Musical antenna
Play with the Field. A large antenna registers the changes in its own electric field when people enter it. The changes are made audible as sounds. In this…
Non-round Wheels
And yet they roll! With the right rolling surface, even a square rolls perfectly round. This applies to a pentagon as well as to any other regular…
Pedal generator
Generate electricity yourself. The pedal generator can make you sweat quite a bit just to boil a sip of water. How much (pedal) power do you think it takes…
Penrose Parquet
Aperiodic pattern. In the aperiodic Penrose tiling, subpatterns repeat irregularly, even though shapes like hexagons or stars appear throughout. Using only…
Pi
The first 20,000 decimal places. π, the mysterious number – displayed as a digit spiral on a poster. π (Pi) is a natural constant that represents the ratio…
Pins in a magnetic field
Reverse the polarity of the earth. Inside a transparent sphere is a very strong magnet. Iron pins can be held or placed outside the sphere. These align…
Plasma columns
Influence the clouds of mist. A red glowing plasma is generated in two glass columns by an electric field. If you touch the column, you change the electric…
Population Growth
How fast – and where? Current population figures displayed on a world map, by continent and overall. For each continent, the counters show how many people…
Pythagoras’ Theorem - Easy to weigh up!
a² + b² = c² with stars and bunnies. The square of the hypotenuse and the squares of the legs can be weighed against each other, as they are made of identical…
Pythagoras’ Theorem - flows from this
a² + b² = c² The Pythagorean theorem describes a transformation of areas. In a right triangle, the sum of the squares of the two shorter sides equals the…
Quasi-Crystals
Golden rhombohedra. When correctly assembled, the various bodies (cubes stretched along their diagonals and cubes compressed along their diagonals) form a…
Rhombo Puzzle
Rhombo-dodecahedron from parallelepipeds. Twelve building blocks (each consisting of two connected parallelepipeds) can be assembled to form a…
Rocking Roller - the Oloid
Wobbles, but goes straight. The oloid has only one surface. It is the only known shape that fully unwinds as it rolls. This means that every point on its…
Rotating magnets
Hovering through rotation. One magnet is set into rapid rotation. If you now approach a second magnet to the rotating one, the second one starts to rotate as…
Sculptures in stroboscopic light
« BLOOM Revelation » and « BLOOM Accordance ». Sculptures come alive: single images, shown in rapid succession, are combined by our brain into a seamless…
Soft landing
Confidence in Eddy Currents. Here you can let yourself fall backwards and rely on the braking effect of eddy current. Two strong magnets are attached to a…
Solarmobile
Light becomes electric energy. The elements in this mobile each contain a solar cell and an electric motor. If you point the light of a lamp at one of the…
Soma Cube
7 pieces = 1 cube. Each of the seven components of this large cube is a polycube. This means each piece consists of several small cubes. Spatial imagination…
Sorting machine
Separation using Eddy Currents. The sorting machine uses magnets to sort different coins according to their conductivity. To do this, the magnets are moved…
Square Puzzle and the Square to Triangle-Conversion
Disassemble and reassemble – discrete geometry. Square puzzle: Nine square tiles of different sizes. Arranged correctly, they fit into an almost-square…
Swimming with the current
Single-cell organisms swim around in a chamber under a microscope. At the push of a button, the chamber can be put under voltage. The single-celled organisms…
T-Puzzle
Frustratingly simple. Four pieces make up a puzzle. When placed correctly, they form the letter T. Child’s play. But: is this task really that easy?
Template Code
Untangling the letter jumble. Perfectly possible, with the right template. Using it in reverse, you can encrypt a 36-letter message, almost impossible for…
Tetrahedron Puzzle I
Three-sided pyramid, puzzle with two pieces. Spatial imagination is required: when correctly combined, these two equally sized bodies form a…
Tetrahedron Puzzle II
Three-sided pyramid, puzzle with four pieces. Spatial imagination is required: when correctly combined, these four equally sized bodies form a…
Tetrahedron Puzzle III
This puzzle game is mainly about spatial imagination. Four (2 equal) bodies made of spheres are to be assembled to form a tetrahedron.
Th shortest Way is not always the quickest
Marble race. Three tracks with the same height difference and the same horizontal distance, but different curves: the straight path is the shortest,…
The Circle’s the Limit!
A circle with many corners. Reflect green laser light to form a triangle, a quadrilateral, a pentagon, a … The more corners this polygon has, the more it…
The twist with the coil
Current using earth’s magnetic field. A coil is rotated in the earth's magnetic field and thereby generates current. The current generated depends on the…
Thread Models
Straight threads, curved surfaces. Rotatable cylindrical model: a cylinder becomes a hyperboloid. A surface generated by the rotation of a hyperbola. Movable…
Three Balls on a String
Motion patterns with momentum. Three balls on a string: what pendulum motions occur at low, medium, and high rotation speeds? Depending on the rotation…
Towers of Hanoi
Rearranging – how many moves does it take? Five disks stacked on a pole, arranged from largest to smallest. These five disks need to be moved to one of the…
Water Parabola
Parabola in a natural phenomenon. As the rotational speed of this container increases, the water surface inside curves. The faster it rotates, the steeper the…
Weird Wheels
Not round, but it rolls round. These discs aren’t round, but when they roll, their axis stays at the same height: solids of constant width. Disc-shaped bodies…
Wobbly Bridge I Arch Bridge / Wobbly Bridge II Suspension Bridge
Suspension bridge – an arch bridge viewed from a different angle and subjected to a different load. Resembling a suspension bridge, the chain bridge reflects…
Wolf, Goat and Cabbage
Keep calm, ferryman! Task: transport cabbage, goat, and wolf to the other side of the river. Tricky, since only one other passenger fits on the ferry. The…
Your Birthday in Pi
Ten million decimal places. Somewhere in π lies your birthday or your license plate number. This computer station can find any six-digit combination. At…
Asseln unter der Lupe - inklusiv
Asseln sind bestimmt keine besonders beliebten Haustiere – umso mehr eignen sie sich aber als Einstieg in die Tierkunde. Was machen eigentlich Zoologen, deren…
Aus Rot und Grün wird ....) Farbmischung mit Kreiseln - inklusiv
bunte Papierscheiben tanzen. Plötzlich sehen wir Farben, die vorher gar nicht da waren. Wie kommt das? Und können wir mit nur drei Farben unsere…
Entdeckung im Alltäglichen - Experimente mit Kerzen - inklusiv
Die Phänomene, die sich bei einer brennenden Kerze beobachten lassen, führen zu vielen verschiedenen Themen in den Naturwissenschaften. Kerzen lassen uns…
Kalt, kälter, schockfrosten - inklusiv
Ein Glace gefällig? Wir verwenden nur natürliche Zutaten und frosten diese mit flüssigem Stickstoff (minus 196 °C!) in Nullkommanix zu einer fruchtigen…
Villa Kunterbung - Farbchemie inklusiv
Rot und gelb macht blau, widdewiddewitt und grau macht grün! Warum Rotkohl sowohl Blau als auch Rot sein kann, hat seinen Grund in der Chemie. Farben spielen…
Accessibile for people with cognitive disability
Accessible for people in wheelchair
Accessible for people with hearing disability
Accessible for people with visual disability
Audiodeskription
Gebärdensprache
Leichte Sprache
Little fine motor skills required
