[Phys-L] Re: Science "Magic" Demos

[Julie Quah <juliequah@GMAIL.COM>]

Hi Tim,
 I am a Secondary School Science teacher from Singapore. I usually de=
mo this
to my class before the start of the unit on moment / turning effect.
 Have a plank of wood elevated on a small wooden block to create a
slope.Getready a light cylindrical container, eg from an empty cookie
container (on
the inside of the cylindrical container, you place something heavy li=
ke a
ball of plasticine to load one side of the container) To increase the=
 fun
factor, you may want to paste a piece of smiley face on the cooker co=
ver.
Begin by asking your audiences to predict what will happen to the
cylindrical container when you release it on the slope. Depending on =
how you
position the container, it will roll up, down or stay put on the slop=
e.
Great fun to see their faces when you make the container roll up the =
slope
:)
 This demo works best if your cylindrical container is very light (eg=
 with
plastic material) and has big diameter.
 Julie

 On 9/28/05, Folkerts, Timothy J <FolkertsT@bartonccc.edu> wrote:
> I volunteered to give a ~ 50 min presentation on "science magic" to
> ~20-30 high school students in about 3 weeks and was hoping some pe=
ople
> here had some favorites they might like to share. Hopefully the dem=
os
> will be 1) entertaining, 2) educational, 3) low budget and 4) not t=
oo
> difficult to perform. I plan to present a brief explanation of each
> feat, but no really involved derivations or anything like that.
>
> Some current ideas include
> 1) bed of nails (I'd have to build one soon)
> 2) string tied above & below a heavy weight (slow pull breaks top
> string, quick tug breaks bottom string.
> 3) cabbage juice pH indicator.
> 4) juggling on a force plate (showing that the average force is the=
 same
> whether juggling or not)
> 5) Bernoulli ping pong ball suspended on a stream of air.
> 6) cooling & crushing a container full of steam
>
> Do these sound reasonable? Any other ideas? Links to website with
> similar info? I don't think these will take 10 min each, so I need =
a
> few more!
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> Tim Folkerts
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