Make: Live Tonight at 9pm

I’ll be watching.

Vernier Video Physics for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store: “Vernier Video Physics for iOS brings physics video analysis to iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Take a video of an object in motion, mark its position frame by frame, and set up the scale using a known distance. Video Physics then draws trajectory, position, and velocity graphs for the object. Share video, graphs and data to facebook, your Photo Library and to your computer running Vernier’s Logger Pro software.”

I can’t tell you what this means to me as a teacher.

Wow. We’re living in the future, folks.

I can’t wait to use this in class tomorrow!

As the air rushes backward out of the balloon it pushes the car forward in the opposite direction with an equal force.

Your job is to make the most of this force!

The rules to this activity are simple:

* The car must be powered by balloons.

* You can build the car out of anything.

* It must have at least three wheels. Wheels are defined as anything that is round and goes around.

* The wheels cannot be wheels from a toy car. They must be made out of something that was not originally meant to be used as wheels.

* The car may not leave the ground.

* The car must be capable of traveling at least 5 meters.

—————-

Here’s how the whole thing works…

- On race day we will set up a track down a long hallway.

- You will race in pairs against other classmates.

- Cars that follow all of the rules will be eligible for awards.

- These awards will be given in three categories:

Best Looking Car

Fastest Car (in first 5 meters)

Farthest Distance Traveled

- We will work on our balloon racers in class next week, so start brainstorming about materials your group will need.

—————-

Helpful Hints

There are several important things to keep in mind when designing and building your balloon racer. The first thing to do is choose the material to build the chassis or body of the car. The chassis should be both light and sturdy, for this reason Styrofoam makes a very good chassis. It is also important to design a chassis that is long enough. Short cars tend to spin out more often than longer ones. A good car should be about 30 cm long.

The second thing to do is build and mount the wheels. Wheels can be made out of about anything that is round, such as CDs caps and lids. The hard part, however, is getting them mounted straight with little friction. If the wheels are not mounted straight or are not free to spin smoothly, the car will not perform well.

Once the wheels are mounted on the chassis it is time to put a balloon onto the car. Having the balloon attached to a pen barrel so that the air comes out in a smooth manner helps. Another helpful approach is to double up a balloon so that it is twice as thick.

If the car has a sturdy but light body, free moving wheels and a good power supply, you are well on your way to being a balloon racer champion.

If you have a second, go ahead and sign up if you’d be interested in participating…

Google Global Science Fair 2011

We’ll chat more about what I have in mind when we finally have “school” again.

I love the Lego and CERN partnerships, btw!

It will be streaming live…

YouTube – GoogleScienceFair’s Channel

Looks pretty cool (if I am allowed to say such things even though I’m old).

Maybe a Skype or Facebook group chat to discuss while it plays?

Maybry: Breaking Down Sugar

If you didn’t finish Lab 2 today, brainstorm on what you may need to do/bring for tomorrow!

Let’s try to have these labs (with finished lab reports) finished up by Friday.

Enjoy!