A good store to buy science fair materials?

[BrackenClelk]

Hello everyone. Does anyone know of a good hobby/educational store that sells stuff you can use in physics fair demonstrations? Specifically, I am looking to buy a gyroscope. Although it's a popular toy, they've been hard to find (and due to budget and time constraints I'd rather not order one online). I live in Mississauga - it's very close to Toronto, ON, Canada. Any comments are appreciated.

 

[Danger]

I still think that EftonScience (used to be Edmund Scientific Company) is an incredible place. If I recall, they're based in New Jersey. You should be able to access a catelogue, or at least a contact number, through Google.

 

[scorpa]

Sometimes in malls they have a store called the science shop which might have what you are looking for.

 

[Danger]

Never heard of that, Scorpa. As you know, we were just up to West Ed mall a couple of months ago and I didn't see anything like that on the directory. Never noticed one in Calgary, either. The closest that I've run across is a Discovery Channel store. Where do I find one of those?

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

I still think that EftonScience (used to be Edmund Scientific Company) is an incredible place. If I recall, they're based in New Jersey. You should be able to access a catelogue, or at least a contact number, through Google.

http://www.escience.ca/" also has a web site. They have a NY state address, but I don't know if they have a retail store.

I used to live in Barrington, about a mile from the Edmunds Scientific building. You could go there for science project materials. A lot of what they had in the store was junk optics like lenses, prisms, diffraction gratings, etc, all with chips or other minor flaws. Rumor was they tossed some badly chipped lenses out in the back of the store, but I never tried to find any. I remember making a 'magic' box with a half-wave mirror I bought there for small change. When I went to Israel in the 60's and told people that my home was in Barrington, they would ask me about Edmunds.

They had on display a periscope taken from a WWII Japanese submarine. I wouldn't go in the store without taking a peek through it at the surrounding area.

 

[scorpa]

Never heard of that, Scorpa. As you know, we were just up to West Ed mall a couple of months ago and I didn't see anything like that on the directory. Never noticed one in Calgary, either. The closest that I've run across is a Discovery Channel store. Where do I find one of those?

Hmmm I don't believe West Ed has one but Southgate Mall does. I haven't spent much time in that store, they have a lot of goofy useless science things but I believe you can get some more serious chem stuff there to like beakers, flasks, distillation equipment...ect. They might have the sort of the the OP was looking for as well. I always mean to go and browse around the store a bit but always forget so I don't really know how good the store really is.

 

[glondor]

Epson science on dufferin just past the mall,(Yorkdale) look for the giant telescope on the roof. They have 3 or 4 floors of way cool stuff.

 

[Danger]

http://www.escience.ca/" is in Canada.

There has to be an affiliation of some sort, since I got an Edmund's catalogue every year and they started turning up with the EftonScience label instead. Same catelogue; different address. (Toronto instead of Joisy.)
There's a submarine-themed restaurant in Vegas that also has a periscope. It's pretty cool to follow a car down the Strip with it... see who's shooting at who...
Scorpa, I'm not familiar with the Southgate mall (it had better not be like the one in Calgary). Next time we're in 'Chuck, I'll check it out. Luckily, that doesn't happen very often.

 

[scorpa]

Southgate is a fairly small mall but they are putting a huge expansion onto it. It has everything you need for the most part and you don't have to deal with the huge crowds at WEM. I think it is better than Kingsway, but I don't go to Kingsway often enough to really know.