When Lightning Lucy dropped by Edgecomb Eddy School on Tuesday, May 23, she brought several kinds of energy with her, including potential, kinetic, elastic, heat, light, sound, laser, neon, wind, and gravitational. She hopped on a pogo stick, made sparks when she fired ping pong balls from a purple neon shooter, and popped hydrogen-filled balloons over a lit Bunsen burner. And during each presentation, helped by more-than-willing volunteers, Lightning Lucy showed she had the most energy of all.

Lightning Lucy is one of the instructors for Mad Science of Maine. Lucy, or Taryn Friedman, has been program director and part owner of the Mad Science Group, Inc. franchise for 17 years. Her partner, Nicole Troe (Nitro Nikki), serves as director of operations.

Based in South Portland, Mad Science of Maine travels throughout the state and to parts of New Hampshire all year, interacting with kids in and out of the classroom to get them fired up about science. Several instructors with aliases like Electric Elaine, Lord Banana, Amethyst Amanda and Jurassic Justin work for the company and all have teaching and/or science backgrounds and experience with elementary school children.

Mad Science was the brainchild of Ariel and Ron Shlien, brothers who began performing science shows with hands-on activities for kids at their local YMCA during the 1980s. The interest in their shows spread beyond their local community, and the two formed the Mad Science Group. The business has expanded to include franchises in 21 countries all over the world.

The show at Edgecomb Eddy School was educational, awesome and fun. Lightning Lucy kept students from kindergarten through sixth grade, teachers, and staff engaged throughout the hour-long presentation and she left her audience fired up about the countless ways different types of energy make the world go around.