Need cool school project for teens!

[Swamp Donkey]

My wife is an applied technology teacher at a highschool. This is a hands on course where kids learn about physics by building cool stuff. They make Co2 dragsters (aerodynamics), pop bottle rockets (propulsion), catapults (leverage), wiring cyborg masks (electronics )... etc.



She is looking for some kind of new project to teach her kids which is manly, cool and cheap. Any ideas????

 

[DarrellB]

Might be I don't know

When I was in school we did a bridge building project.



You and a partner got a certain amount of Balsa wood and had to build a bridge of any design. The bridge had to have a road bed on it that would support a block of wood with a large hook in it. What you did was suspend the bridge over 2 desks and put the block of wood on it and then hook a 5 gallon bucket to the block. Next you poured sand in the bucket till the bridge broke. You wighed the bucket and block and who's ever bridge held the most weight won.



Here is a website that might help; www.balsabridge.com



I really liked doing that. And I'm sure other kids will like it too.



Darrell

 

[Ron Bissett]

project?

Card board ,bridge ,boat , tower , ect then recycle the cardboard. LOL Ron Bissett in LOUISVILLE KYOo. Oo.

 

[Hale on wheels]

We did a thing in high school physics where we had to build a contraption to keep an egg from breaking when we dropped it off the top of the football bleachers.

 

[KPhillips]

I loved the Co2 dragsters, those were a blast, I remember doing that in junior high..... sorruy but I can't think of anything other than whats been added so far,,,,



anyone remember the gadgets that were made out of a rectangular block (about 2"x2"x4")of wood with a hole drilled through the length (centered) and another piece (same 2"x2" stock) that had (4) 45 degree angles cut in (like a pyramid) and a dow rod (same diameter as the hole thats drilled in the other block) inserted through the bottom with a hook cut into the bottom of the dow rod?



The rectangular block had part of a rubber band inserted into the bottom to look like a rubber band was inside the block.



You would ask people if they could stick the angled piece with the dow in and hook the rubber band (which isn't possible), when they couldn't you would take the angles peice and stick it in the hole, pull it partly out and squeeze the angled piece between your fingers which would casue it to shoot from your fingers and snap against the wood and make them think you had hooked the rubber band... .



had a b;ast building tose and tricking people, that was one of our projects, but I'm sure none of this make sense, its hard to describe in writing



kerryp

bastrop, tx

 

[Mark_Kendrick]

We did a 'time aloft' contest with paper airplanes, distance also. something like a pinewood derby wopuld be neat. building a simple DC motor would be interesting and techically challenging.



model rockets are pretty cool too.

 

[fest3er]

Swampy,

Geta small container into which a small amount of dry ice can be placed.

Get a 'solenoid' that attaches to the above container. The solenoid will have a pressure override latch that will prevent the solenoid from moving until a certain amount of pressure is exceeded, similar to the clicker in a torque wrench.

Place a steel ball of known mass, say, 250 grams, in front of the solenoid.

Heat the container and solenoid to a known temperature, say, 40C.

Set the override switch to release when the gaseous CO2 reaches, say, 10 PSI, 20 PSI, 40 PSI, 80 PSI.

Place a known mass of dry ice (say, 10, 20, 40, 80 grams) into the container.

Measure the time duration between closing the container and the release of the override latch.

Measure how far the steel ball travels, if at all.

Build a 3D chart showing the relationship among temperature, time to release and distance travelled.

Calculate the thrust applied to the steel ball.

Now that I thiink about it, this sounds a *lot* like a launching the ball in a pinball machine.

But it is a simple mechanism that can show the effects of gas evaporation rate, temperature vs. pressure, and the force a pressurized (relative to atmospheric) gas can generate.

Instead of dry ice, you could use methane or propane and a spark plug to demonstrate the expanion that occurs when a gas oxidizes.

Fest3er

 

[Ron Bissett]

what would you call that gas spark plug experoment the big bang thery lol Ron Bissett in Louisville Ky

 

[TPilaske]

Re: Might be I don't know

Originally posted by DarrellB

When I was in school we did a bridge building project.



You and a partner got a certain amount of Balsa wood and had to build a bridge of any design. The bridge had to have a road bed on it that would support a block of wood with a large hook in it. What you did was suspend the bridge over 2 desks and put the block of wood on it and then hook a 5 gallon bucket to the block. Next you poured sand in the bucket till the bridge broke. You wighed the bucket and block and who's ever bridge held the most weight won.



Here is a website that might help; www.balsabridge.com



I really liked doing that. And I'm sure other kids will like it too.



Darrell

We did a bridge project as well in drafting. We designed it ourselves and built it ourselves though... Then we stacked bricks on it until it broke! Fun stuff!



Tony

 

[Swamp Donkey]

Thanks for the suggestions guys. She now wants me to start building prototypes for all these suggestions... ...



Getting whooped by some 13 year old will not do my ego any good.

 

[Morphious]

I remember doing the bridge project in tech ed... . teach said I cheated cause I soaked the bridge in glue (it only had 8 layers of glue)... . he had said that we could only use certain things to build the bridge, and that's all I used.....



We also built the CO^2 racers... . I built a custom racer with dual CO^2 canisters, had to modify the launcing mechanism to fire both canisters at once... .



Needless to say, the tech teacher loved me in his class.....



Morph.

 

[Mark_Kendrick]

I did the Balsa bridge thing too. Spanned 2ft x 9" tall by 6" wide, weighed 9 oz and held almost 1000lbs... I made 5 layer balsa plywood with the max crsssection of 1" x 1/2" it held 600lbs without creaking... it was pretty cool.