Now, remember that I'm a liberal arts mommy. Making trains go backwards is not my specialty. But I wanted to try this out with CJ so I dutifully took a tiny piece of tin foil, folded it carefully and put it behind the battery. You guessed it. It didn't work. CJ and I were really disappointed.
That evening, I told Maki about our misadventure and he just looked at me funny. I asked him if putting tin foil would really make the train go backward and his computer science self gave me an "I can't believe you don't know this stuff" look. He took a piece of tin foil, carefully folded it so that it fit neatly into the back contact area. Then he put the battery in backward and explained that by reversing the battery in a DC motor, you CAN make it go backward.
My liberal arts self was dumbfounded when CJ turned on Percy and the train indeed went backwards! CJ squealed in delight and I realized again how lucky CJ is to have a liberal arts mommy and a computer science daddy. :-) I swear, I'm just in awe of what Maki knows.
