Innovation

June 2 – Leave the Office Earlier Day

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About the Holiday

The brain child of Laura Stack, a specialist in employee motivation, Leave the Office Earlier Day urges a look at how employees and employers use the working hours of the day to best advantage. Today’s holiday motivates employees to finish their tasks before schedule by making a conscious effort to increase efficiency and productivity. Greater cooperation between workers and their bosses can lead to less downtime and more success. To celebrate today’s holiday, employees can ask their bosses if they can leave the office once their work is truly and well finished. Employers may want to allow their workers to leave as soon as they have completed all their tasks. Both sides may find this tactic improves productivity and creates a more positive work environment.

The Secret Subway

Written by Shana Corey | Illustrated by Red Nose Studio (Chris Sickels)

 

In the 1860s the streets of New York were…well, not to put too fine a point on it…disgusting. Cobblestone and filled with trash, waste, horse manure, dust, dirt, and throngs of people, the roads made for rough travel. Many people had ideas about what could be done to make the streets safer and cleaner. Some thought a moving sidewalk would work, others talked about double-decker roads or an elevated train system. But although there was a lot of talk, nothing ever got done.

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Image copyright Chris Sickles, courtesy of rednosestudio.com

Alfred Ely Beach, however, peered down from his high office room and studied the street below him. Alfred Beach was a thinker, a publisher, and an inventor. He put his clever mind to work and came up with a solution. He envisioned a train powered by an enormous fan that would travel underground. “People would get where they needed to go as if by magic!” he thought. He couldn’t wait to start building. There was just one problem—he didn’t own the streets. And getting permission to dig them up would be hard. “So Beach hatched a sneaky plan. He would propose building an underground tube to carry mail instead.” As he had imagined, no one objected to this project when he proposed it—not even Boss Tweed, who unofficially ran the city.

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-the-secret-subway-designing

Image copyright Chris Sickles, courtesy of rednosestudio.com

Given the okay, Beach rented the basement of Devlin’s Clothing Store. Every day he sent in workers to dig and every night wagons took away the debris. For 58 days and nights Beach’s men tunneled under the city, moving forward 8 feet each day. At last the tunnel was finished. It was 8 feet across and 294 feet long—large enough to hold a train full of people.

Beach then decorated the basement to be a beautiful, welcoming waiting room. Gaslight lamps and paintings dotted the walls, flowers added color, and a grandfather clock rang out the time. There was even a fountain with goldfish, a man playing a grand piano, and a delicious lunch. When everything was ready, Beach invited reporters, government officials, and distinguished citizens to join him on February 26, 1876 at the “Beach Pneumatic Transit Company.”

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-the-secret-subway-designing

Image copyright Chris Sickles, courtesy of rednosestudio.com

That first day Alfred Beach’s guests only admired the train, but they gave it glowing praise. Soon Beach opened his train to the public. With a WHOOSH of a gigantic fan, the train zipped down the track and then back again. “Beach’s train was a SENSATION! All winter while wagons slipped and slid on the slushy streets above, people poured into Devlin’s for the twenty-five-cent ride.”

While riders loved it, some people objected. Shop keepers didn’t want potential buyers underground. Property owners were afraid the digging would hurt their buildings, and some felt Beach wanted too much power. Even Boss Tweed no longer supported it since some of his friends had their own ideas on building a subway. When the governor of New York refused to let Beach expand his train, the project came to a halt.

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-the-secret-subway-invites-riders

Image copyright Chris Sickles, courtesy of rednosestudio.com

The idea didn’t die, however, and “many years later drilling could be heard once again under the streets of New York City” as a train system powered with electricity was being built. Diggers discovered many unusual things buried under the city. Perhaps the most surprising was a brick wall behind which stood a little railroad car rusting in its tracks, a memorial to innovation and the future.

Alfred Ely Beach was one clever man, and Shana Corey tells his story with historical perspective, wit, and suspense. Corey’s language crackles with evocative alliteration, stealth, and action. Kids will be excited to learn of the intrigue and imagination that led to this remarkable snippet of America’s history.

Fans of Claymation will love Chris Sickels’ multimedia artwork that combines sculpted characters, specially built props, photographs, and illustration. Sickels’ characters are nothing short of astounding. Their period clothing, hairstyles, and expressive faces lend an engaging and realistic dimension to the vintage scenes. Sickels cleverly depicts early New York City and people’s alternative ideas to the traffic problem. His use of color and lighting sets the perfect tone for this highly entertaining and educational picture book. Kids will want to linger over each page to catch all the details of The Secret Subway.

Ages 4 – 10

Schwartz & Wade, Random House Kids, 2016 | ISBN 978-0375870712

Leave the Office Early Day Activity

 

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-the-secret-subway-chris-sickels-craft

Chris Sickels’ Secret Subway

 

Chris Sickels of Red Nose Studio invites you to build your own Secret Subway with this printable play set, complete with Alfred Ely Beach and a passenger! Click here to download your printable Secret Subway Activity!

Build a Super Subway Car

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-subway-car

Every day, millions of people all over the world travel to work, school, and other activities by subway. Here’s an easy and fun way to build your own subway train from recycled materials. You can make just one car or make a few and connect them to create a long train worthy of any big city!

Supplies

  • Printable Subway Car Template
  • Medium or long toothpaste box
  • Silver paint
  • Glue
  • Paintbrush
  • Scissors

Directions

  1. Paint the toothpaste box with the silver paint, let dry
  2. Cut out the windows, doors, and stripe templates
  3. Trim the stripes to fit your box
  4. To make the little sign near the door, trim a small aquare from one of the stripes
  5. Glue the templates to the box

Picture Book Review

May 24 – Brother’s Day

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About the Holiday

Brothers share a special bond built on mischief, inside jokes, shared experience, and love. If you have a brother—either by blood or friendship—spend some time with him, give him a call, or just text and say, “hi.”

The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story of Bob and Joe Switzer’s Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors

Written by Chris Barton | Illustrated by Tony Persiani

 

Before the Switzer brothers had their bright idea, the world was a much less colorful place. Bob Switzer, born in 1914, loved to work and saved his money for exciting plans. His younger brother Joe loved magic and had an inventive mind. When the family moved to Berkley, California, Joe developed a magic act that included “black art” in which an object that was painted half black and half white seemed to float and disappear in midair.

Joe loved this trick but thought it could be better. Meanwhile Bob planned to become a doctor. But during the summer before he began college, Bob had an accident that ended his plans. Because his injury effected his head, he had to recover in a darkened room. While Bob healed, Joe spent time in the basement with him studying the glow of fluorescence, hoping to use it in his magic show. Together the brothers built an ultraviolet lamp which they tested in their father’s pharmacy. When they shone it on a shelf full of bottles, a container of eyewash glowed yellow.

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Image copyright Tony Persiani, text copyright Chris Barton. Courtesy of Charlesbridge

The brothers had an idea. They experimented with chemicals that could make paints glow in the dark. In regular light the paint looked normal, but under ultraviolet light it radiated attention-getting colors. That was great for Joe’s magic act, but Bob thought these paints could be used for other things too, such as store-window displays. Selling the paint could help pay for Bob’s medical bills too.

Bob and Joe searched through the university and other labs for other fluorescent materials. They then combined them with other ingredients in their mother’s mixing bowl to create glowing paints and even once—when the mixing bowl was not cleaned well enough—a very colorful cake!

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Image copyright Tony Persiani, text copyright Chris Barton. Courtesy of Charlesbridge

Joe used these paints to major effect in one of his acts in which a dancing woman “lost her head” as Joe, unseen by the audience in the darkened theater, took off her headdress as she danced away. This trick brought Bob and Joe lots of customers for their original paints. But there was one problem: these colors only shone under ultraviolet light.

One day in 1935, however, one of Bob’s experiments resulted in a surprising innovation—a dye that glowed even in daylight. Bob didn’t know how exactly it had worked, so the brothers continued experimenting. Finally, they discovered the secret when an orange billboard they had created glowed as if it were on fire even in the daytime! The brothers then created reds, yellows, greens, and other colors that could do the same thing.

During World War II these glowing colors were used on fabric panels used to send signals from the ground to airplanes overhead, in lifeboats, on buoys, and on other safety products. After the war the colors continued to influence culture and are still part of our lives today.

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-the-day-glo-brothers-final

Image copyright Tony Persiani, text copyright Chris Barton. Courtesy of Charlesbridge

Older kids with a penchant for science and history will love this biography. Chris Barton goes in-depth to reveal the Switzer brothers’ dreams and motivations that resulted in a most astounding discovery. Barton infuses the story with humor and interesting details that will fascinate curious minds.

Using a retro style, Tony Persiani sets this biography in its time while also giving the story a modern feel. Gray scale tones become dotted with florescent color as the brothers’ experiments bear fruit and give way to eye-popping spreads with the ultimate success of Day-Glo paints and dyes.

Ages 7 – 12

Charlesbridge, 2009 | ISBN 978-1570916731

Brother’s Day Activity

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-day-glo-maze

Day-Glow Maze

 

Follow the twisty glowing paths to match the Day-Glo product to the object they color! Print the Day-Glo Maze puzzle here!

Picture Book Review

April 22 – Earth Day

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About the Holiday

In 1970 the first Earth Day was celebrated to bring awareness to environmental issues and begin a dialogue about how governments, corporations, communities, and individuals could create change that would benefit the Earth and all her inhabitants. Forty-six years later, we are working toward solutions to problems like pollution, climate change, renewable energy, and more. Today look around your home, office, school, or community and see how you can better support our Mother Earth.

Green City: How One Community Survived a Tornado and Rebuilt for a Sustainable Future

By Allan Drummond

 

On May 4, 2007 a devastating tornado hits Greensburg, Kansas, destroying the town in 9 minutes. When the residents of the town climb from their shelters, they emerge into a world completely changed. There are no more homes, no school, no hospital, no grocery store or other shops. No banks, theater, churches, or water tower. Even the trees have been shredded. Only three buildings remain.

The citizens are urged to move away. Rebuilding will be impossible, some say, and what’s the point anyway when the wind could destroy it all again? But others see opportunity to construct a different kind of town. With the help of volunteers and donations from around the world, Greensburg begins the Herculean task of designing and building a new town.

After clearing away 388,000 tons of debris and moving into a community of trailer homes, the people begin to envision a unique, green town. Individuals design sustainable houses of different shapes and materials to work with the environment. Businesses, too, incorporate sustainability into their offices, retail centers, and hotels as do the hospital and the water tower. A wind farm large enough to provide energy for the entire town is built on the edge of this innovative city.

A new school is central to the town’s survival, and for three years the teachers hold class in small trailers. Along with their regular studies, the kids become experts in environmental science. After several years Greenburg is now thriving—a testament to conservation and sustainability that is an example for global communities now and in the future.

Allan Drummond tells this fascinating story of a community that would not give up in an honest and sensitive way that highlights the courage and pride of a town amid devastating loss. Told from a child’s point of view, the story has extra impact for readers who are growing up amid an era of environmental awareness and activism. The sustainable construction of homes and other buildings is effectively explained and clearly depicted in Drummond’s colorful illustrations.

The images also demonstrate the process of negotiation and cooperation among townspeople that went into designing and building a new Greensburg. The final two-page spread of the town’s layout will interest kids as well as adults who have followed this story in the news.

Ages 5 – 9

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016 | ISBN 978-0374379995

Earth Day Activity

celebrate-picture-book-review-caterpillar-planter-craft

Hatch a Caterpillar Planter

 

As spring days grow warmer, it’s fun to start growing your own garden. Propagating plants from seed on a windowsill or sun room gives you an up-close view as the seeds develop roots, sprout, and flourish!

Supplies

  • Egg carton made from recycled paper
  • Seeds for your favorite veggies or flowers
  • Potting soil
  • Spoon or small shovel
  • Craft paint or markers in the colors you’d like for your caterpillar
  • Pipe cleaners or wire
  • Googly eyes
  • Marker

Directions

  1. Carefully cut the egg carton into two rows lengthwise, you may need to trim the cardboard between cups
  2. If the cups have low openings on one side, place the second row of cups inside the first facing the opposite way.
  3. Paint or color the carton, let dry
  4. Push pipe cleaners or wire through the edge of the egg carton on one end to form antennae (I used wrapped wire and painted it)
  5. Attach googly eyes and draw a smile on the front of the carton
  6. Fill cups with soil
  7. Plant seeds according to package directions
  8. Place caterpillar planter in a sunny spot

Picture Book Review

April 18 – It’s National Inventor’s Month

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The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires picture book review

About the Holiday

Perhaps April was chosen as Inventor’s Month because the blossoms of early spring echo the flourish of ideas that come from fertile minds. This month honors all the men and women throughout history who dared to think differently and changed the world. Today, that proud tradition continues in the excitement of school labs and classrooms, through online courses and computer technology, and in private homes where people of all ages are pondering and creating the next big thing. If you have a knack for innovation or invention, take time to sit down and work on your ideas today.

The Most Magnificent Thing

By Ashley Spires

 

A little pony-tailed girl and her puppy do everything together. They race, eat, explore, and relax. When she makes things, her best friend unmakes them. One day the girl has a brilliant idea—she is going to make “the most MAGNIFICENT thing!” In her mind it’s going to be “easy-peasy.” She knows exactly how it will look and how it will work.

With her faithful assistant following at her heels, the girl gathers materials and goes to work on the sidewalk outside her home. The girl “tinkers and hammers and measures” while her assistant “pounces and growls and chews.” When the little invention is finished, they stand back to examine it. Hmmm…it doesn’t look quite right. It doesn’t feel quite right either. In fact it is all wrong! The girl tries again.

She “smooths and wrenches and fiddles” while her assistant “circles and tugs and wags.” It still turns out wrong. Determined to make her vision reality, she gives it another go…and another…and another. She makes her invention different shapes, gives it various textures, measures out assorted sizes. One attempt even smells like stinky cheese! But none of these creations are MAGNIFICENT.

People stop by and offer encouraging—even admiring—remarks, but the little girl just gets mad. Can’t they see how wrong her invention is? In her anger the little girl works at a fevered pitch, shoving parts together, her brain fogged by “all the not-right things.” In her haste she hurts her finger. This is the last straw. She explodes and declares that she QUITS!

The ever-watchful assistant suggests a bit of fresh air. The girl takes her puppy for a walk and at first her feelings of defeat stay with her. Little by little, though, she pays attention to the world around her and her mind clears. Coming home, she encounters all the wrong things she has made lined up on the sidewalk. Her disappointment threatens to return, but then she notices something surprising—there are parts of each iteration that she likes!

After studying each earlier attempt, she knows just what to do! Slowly and carefully she once more begins to tinker. At the end of the day she and her assistant stand back to look. The machine may lean a bit, and be a little heavy, and it may need a coat of paint…but as the girl and her puppy climb aboard, they both agree that “it really is THE MOST MAGNIFICENT THING!”

You are never too young or too old for Ashley Spires’ inspiring and inspired story. The journey from idea to realization—so often fraught with disaster (or apparent disaster)—is depicted here honestly and with humor as the on-going process it is. Step-by-step the little girl thinks, gathers materials, tinkers, discovers, tinkers some more, and triumphs. It is this last step that is so “magnificently” presented—it’s only by not giving up that success can be achieved.

Spires’ tale is a delight of language—the girl “smooths, wrenches, fiddles, twists, tweaks, and fastens, pummels, jams, and smashes.” Likewise, her illustrations wonderfully depict the changing emotions of this thoughtful, steely-eyed, shocked, and ultimately thrilled young inventor. Her faithful puppy is a charming companion and foil, and kids will love examining the early inventions that lead up to the final product.

The Most Magnificent Thing is a fabulous book to keep on any child’s or adult’s bookshelf for those times when inspiration hits but achievement seems elusive.

Ages 3 – 7 and up (creative types of all ages will enjoy this book)

Kids Can Press, 2014 | ISBN 978-155453704

National Inventor’s Month Activity

CPB - Inventor's Tool Kit II (2)

Inventor’s Tool Kit

 

Every idea begins as a jumble of seemingly unrelated parts. Gathering whatever types of material inspires you and keeping it in a box ready to go when inspiration hits is a great way to support innovation and spark experimentation.

Supplies

  • Small parts organizer with drawers or compartments, available at hardware stores and craft stores
  • A variety of parts or craft materials that can be combined, built with, or built on
  • Some hardware ideas—pulleys, wheels, small to medium pieces of wood, wire, nuts, bolts, screws, hooks, knobs, hinges, recyclable materials
  • Some craft ideas—clay, beads, wooden pieces, sticks, paints, pipe cleaners, string, spools, buttons, glitter, scraps of material, recyclable materials

Directions

  1. Fill the organizer with the materials of your choice
  2. Let your imagination go to work! Build something cool, crazy, silly, useful—Amazing!

March 5 – Expanding Girls’ Horizons in Science and Engineering Day

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About the Holiday

March has been designated by the Expanding Your Horizons network as a time to increase awareness of and promote programs for girls and young women in the sciences and engineering fields. Giving girls interested in pursuing careers in science and engineering more access to resources and opportunities for education will benefit all.

Look Up! Henrietta Leavitt, Pioneering Woman Astronomer

Written by Robert Burleigh | Illustrated by Raúl Colón       

 

Henrietta Leavitt loves the stars. Every night she sits on the front porch and asks herself what were in the early 1900s unanswerable questions. How high was the sky? How far away are the stars? She traces the form of the Big Dipper to the North Star and feels that the stars are trying to tell her something.

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-look-up-henrietta-leavitt-student

Image copyright Raúl Colón, text copyright Robert Berleigh. Courtesy of simonandschuster.com

As a young woman she takes an astronomy class—one of the few women to do so. She learns about light years, planets, and the vast distances that fascinate her. After graduation she takes a job at an observatory, and while it houses a large telescope to study the sky, Henrietta is not allowed to use it. She and the other woman who work at the observatory are only there to record, measure, and calculate data, not to have new ideas.

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-look-up-henrietta-leavitt-studies-star-map

Image copyright Raúl Colón, courtesy of Simon & Schuster

But in doing her job, Henrietta begins to notice a pattern in the brightness of certain stars. She discovers new “blinking” stars. Taking careful measurements, Henrietta finds that a star with a slower “blink” time—the time it takes for a star to go from dim to bright, or from off to on—contains more light power than stars with faster blink times. But what does this mean? After more study she realizes that the blink time can determine the true brightness of any blinking star, even those far, far away.

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Image copyright Raúl Colón, courtesy of Simon & Schuster

Henrietta has made a breakthrough in astronomy! By knowing the true brightness of a star, astronomers can figure out the star’s distance from Earth. Henrietta publishes her star chart in a magazine, and it helps other astronomers measure first the Milky Way and then galaxies they didn’t even know existed! Henrietta is an astronomer–one who advances her beloved science! Even as she grows older Henrietta continues to look to the sky, to ask questions and dream.

More information about Henrietta Leavitt and her discoveries, Internet and print resources on astronomy and other women astronomers, a glossary, and more are provided on the final pages.

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Instead of first presenting Henrietta Leavitt as an adult already working as an astronomer, Robert Burleigh chooses to introduce her as a child, when all she had were questions and dreams about the sky and the stars. It’s a fitting emphasis for a picture book aimed at children who themselves are only just discovering the questions that will guide their lives.  Burleigh’s style is simple and straightforward, revealing pertinent facts about the working conditions of a woman scientist in the early 1900s, but emphasizing Henrietta’s internal contemplations that led to her important discoveries. It’s good for children to see that one does not always need to be the “astronaut” rocketing to the Space Station; the life of the mind is just as noble and needed a pursuit.

Raúl Colón’s watercolor and ink illustrations echo the theme of dreams and contemplation with soft muted colors and antique, sepia tones. Brightness on the pages comes from the points of light that fill the skies and Henrietta’s mind. As a child and young woman, Henrietta sits and stands in the glow of the stars and, one imagines, her own thoughts.

Ages 4 – 8

Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books | ISBN 978-1416958192

Expanding Girls’ Horizons in Science and Engineering Day Activity

CPB - Star Coloring Page

Be the Star You Want to Be Coloring Page

 

Everyone has “stars in their eyes”—dreams and hopes for what they will accomplish in life. Decorate this printable Be the Star You Want to Be coloring page to show what’s in your imagination and in your heart.

February 20 – National Cherry Pie Day

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How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the U.S.A. picture book review

About the Holiday

Today we celebrate a most delicious day! It’s hard not to love pie with its flaky crust and sweet filling. Pies have been served since ancient days, originating with the Romans who, like our own English and American ancestors, discarded the crust before eating it (didn’t they know what they were missing?).

Here are a few rather surprising facts about pie

  • Early pies were mostly made of meat, poultry in particular. The legs of the bird were often left to hang over the side of the dish and used as handles (is this what’s called “getting a leg up”?).
  • Fruit pies probably originated in England in the 1500s.
  • We have the bakers for Queen Elizabeth I to thanks for the first cherry pie.
  • Pie was introduced to America by the first English settlers. It was baked in long narrow pans that the settlers called “coffyns” after pie crusts in their native country.
  • During the American Revolution the term coffyn was changed to “crust” (“Those pesky Redcoats! We don’t want our words to be like theirs!”)

To celebrate today’s holiday, enjoy a slice of cherry pie, read this book, and have fun with the puzzle!

How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the U.S.A.

By Marjorie Priceman

 

In this clever recipe/travelogue combination, Marjorie Priceman takes children on a tour of the United States as they gather the materials to make the tools needed to bake a cherry pie. Sure, it’s easy to buy the bowls, spoons, pie pan, baking sheet, pot holders, and other items required, but where do these things really come from?

With each page kids will vicariously travel across the country with the young baker as she visits Pennsylvania and Ohio for coal to make baking sheets, Mississippi for the cotton needed to sew pot holders, New Mexico for potting clay, and Washington, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Texas, and other states in her pursuit of materials. Along the way, they will learn fun facts about the states and what makes each one special.

The girl joins people playing and working at all kinds of job as she journeys by boat, plane, car, and bus in Priceman’s vibrant and engaging illustrations. Each state is depicted with its unique characteristics, and Priceman has included so many details that kids will love lingering over each page. Curious kids may want to explore more about the subjects they discover in this creative picture book.

Ages 5 – 8

Dragonfly Books, 2013 | ISBN 978-0385752930

Cherry Pie Day Activity

CPB - Cherry Pie Match

Mixed Up Cherry Pies Matching Game

You baked 8 cherry pies for the Cherry Pie Day Festival – 2 of each crust pattern. But they got mixed up! Can you connect the matching cherry pies? Print the Mixed Up Cherry Pies Matching Game Template and draw a line between the matching pies. 

February 18 – National Battery Day

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Using Batteries Picture Book review

About the Holiday

While not an official holiday, National Battery Day is a great time to think about how these small, ubiquitous power cells have changed and improved our lives, allowing us to take our gadgets and our necessities wherever we go. Batteries themselves may be relatively new, but the idea may have been around for 2,000 years. In 1936 archaeologist Wilhelm Konig unearthed a clay jar from a Parthian tomb that held an iron rod encased in copper that may have been used to electroplate gold onto silver.

It was Benjamin Franklin (of course it was!) who coined the term “battery” in 1748 to describe an array of charged glass plates. The word “volt” or a battery’s electric potential comes from Alessandro Volta, who in 1800 generated electrical current by layering silver, a material soaked in salt or acid, and zinc. William Cruickshank, an English chemist, advanced this method, and in 1802 created a battery for mass production. The first commercially available battery was introduced in 1896 by the company now known as Eveready, and we were off and charging!

It’s Electric Series: Using Batteries

By Chris Oxlade

Batteries—those things that make our our cars run, our TV remotes change channels, our little book lights glow, and so much more—are part of our lives from the very beginning, when they’re required (but not included) for our favorite toys. But how many of us really know how they work? This little book explains to children in simple and easily understood language how batteries store and use electricity to fuel many of the world’s machines and gadgets.

Large photographs accompany the text and clearly demonstrate the concepts. Children will learn about using batteries, how batteries work in circuits, the different battery shapes and sizes, battery materials, rechargeable batteries, battery safety, portable power, and more!

For kids interested in electricity – and batteries in particular – theIt’s Electric series of books is a great place to start learning!

Battery Day Activity

Connect the Battery Puzzle

CPB - Battery Day maze

Hmmm…The flashlight, watch, video game controller, and smoke detector are all broken! Can you find which battery goes into which object to make them work again? Print out the Connect the Battery puzzle here.