scientific endeavours

"There's less magic in real magic, I find now, than in scientific magic."
- Ji Hong

Ji has been on a wild scientific kick the past few months. He's always been fascinated with things like plate tectonics and evil robots, but lately that interest has been ratching up daily. For christmas Ji asked for a chemistry set. I bought him a box of kleenex. But his perserverence in undertaking scientific inquiry has finally broken me down. Last weekend I actually made it out of the house for a mother-and-son outing to the mall to buy books and at the bookstore I found an electricity kit for twenty bucks and gave Ji the choice of a book about electricity or the electricity kit.

I wonder if you can guess which he picked.

Still, it was pretty cute. He made sure that he acted out the 'thoughtful deliberation' process for a sufficient amount of time before telling me thought he'd quite prefer the kit. I decided to get the electricity book, too, so that I could figure some of this stuff out before Ji blew up the house.

The past week has been a veritable riot of electricty madness. On the first night Ji and I made a proper electrical circuit and then made a double circuit. For the next few nights Ji and Phet went crazy, building motorized whizz bangers and triple-bulbed circuits. The piece de resistance was built by Friday. Ji took the 'electricity box' he had made a week earlier and actually electrified it. Before, it was just a cardboard box filled with batteries. But now with the help of alligator clips and bulbs and other cool stuff it has become the most thrilling invention OF ALL TIME:

Don't worry, though, I still make sure Ji keeps up on his low-tech studies. Yesterday morning he was allowed to set up laboratory on the dining room table. He got out his magnifying glass, his science measuring cups, various kitchen implements, and then carefully figured out what would happen when he: a) mixed up sugar and cornmeal; b) then added crushed cornflakes; c) then added water; and finally d) got his mother to cook up the resulting mush on the stove. I'm pleased to report that the study was conclusive. Cornmeal and sugar mush tastes good! Dang, Ji, your great grandfather could've told you that.

Ji has also now almost completely filled up his inventions book. Phet went to KL a few weeks ago and was taking a delegation from the East Timorese government to visit the Malaysian potemkin-capital of Putra Jaya. While in Putra Jaya, Phet received a funky Multimedia Supercorridor writing pad, and when he got back he gave it to Ji so he could start keeping track of his inventions. Here are just a few of the over thirty sketches that Ji has completed over the past couple of weeks.

First, my all time favourite, the electrified stroller. Ji invented this after Sloane's cheeks were pinched blue while she was in India. As you can see, the baby can safely rest inside the stroller and if threatened by danger of any sort - especially by pinching - either mother or baby can press a button and zap the crap out of the evil doer:

Another great weapon is the bee gun. Not really interested in inflicting lethal force? But still requiring a reliable bad-guy-stunner? The bee gun is what you need:

But before you start to worry that Ji's inventions are all completely violent, behold the cooking machine he invented for his grandfather:

Sweet!

[Ji Hong-19-March-2006]