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Physics window displays



On Tue, 15 Oct 1996, Jeffrey Voigt wrote:

Hi Bill.
Great Page!
I am looking for ideas for displays to put in my windows at school to
encourage interest in science. I teach at the 8th grade level.
What I am looking for are kinetic type models. I have done the
burnoulli effect with a hair dryer and ping pong ball and am looking
for others like that.
Any ideas?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Jeff! Go to my amateur science page:
http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/amasci.html and look under "kids science
projects here". There you'll find a link to "great books" which gives you
the address to obtain Tic Liem's wonderful (and huge) manual of demos,
INVITATIONS TO SCIENCE ENQUIRY. Then just pick a likely demo from that
book.

Also, take a look at my project list immediately below in "kids science
projects here." The electrostatic soda bottle motor is one which moves,
and can be run by a line-powered hi-volt supply. I had one of these
popbottle motors running in my office for months (I had to make a glass
test-tube bearing for the metal point, the bottlecap only lasted a few
hours!) If this device sits twirling in the window, it should attract
questions, and the questions are hard to answer, and reveal fascinating
mysteries in physics. ...And tend to cause homebuilt copies of the motor
to begin springing up.

Another good one from the list is "gigantic low-cost solar furnace." Does
your classroom window get direct sunshine? If so, you can build a solar
lightsculpture out on the playground, projected from your window! The
mirrors in my solar array device, instead of being "programmed" to focus
to a single hotspot, instead can be adjusted so that they create a light
pattern or spell out a word. Set the thing up in your window in the sun,
adjust the individual screws so that the many little spots of light create
a huge glowing symbol-shape upon a distant shady wall, and you'll have
crowds of kids standing outside your classroom scratching their heads! (I
suggest creating a symbol rather than, say, spelling out the word
"physics." If each letter in a word requires about 10 to 20 pixels, and
one mirror-chip creates one pixel, then "physics" requires 70 to 150
little mirrors, and up to 300 screws needing individual adjustment)
(Myself, I'm detail-obsessed, and love the challenge of writing words in
sunlight with mirror chips)

If the spots of light are projected upon a shady wall many tens of meters
away, then when passersby examine the spots closely, they will be seen to
be moving! Of course it's the earth which is moving, the mirrors and
light simply form an "optical lever" which amplifies the perceived motion.
If you make several light-symbols which are beamed at appropriate angles,
then as the sun moves across the sky, the row of symbols will move across
the distant wall, and at different times of day you'll see a different
symbol there. This actually is the REAL purpose of my device: it is a
digital sundial, and my final goal is to build one with 100,000 mirrors,
one which prints out the sidereal time numerically, to a resolution of
15-seconds!

P.S.

Also go to my page at http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/miscon/miscon4.html
and read down until you find the "aerodynamic lift misconception"
section. Pro-bernoulli and anti-bernoulli sentiments (mostly anti!)


......................uuuu / oo \ uuuu........,.............................
William Beaty voice:206-781-3320 bbs:206-789-0775 cserv:71241,3623
EE/Programmer/Science exhibit designer http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/
Seattle, WA 98117 billb@eskimo.com SCIENCE HOBBYIST web page