On Tuesday we finished our calculations. This alone took up the majority of the class because we still were collecting some of our data. We partially started our graph but ran out of time at the end of class. We did not have to finish this lab though because we had to move onto our egg drop project.
On Wednesday we did a demonstration in class. In this demonstration a person dropped two balls that looked the same but they were made of two different materials. Both balls were dropped at the same time and there was a dramatic difference. One ball seemed to bounce and the other just hit the ground and did not move. The energy of each ball was not created or destroyed but took a different form. Have you ever noticed how when you drop a ball it never comes back to the same spot you dropped it from. That is because the energy may be transformed into heat or sound. We learned this lesson to help us understand some of the physics going into our egg drop project. Our egg drop project is a project where we will have to construct a contraption to hold an egg and not have the egg break when dropped from various heights. After finding out what the project was we got into our groups and made a checklist of what we needed to bring.
On Thursday we started constructing our egg drop project. Our group members brought items such as memory foam, silicone swim caps,bubble wrap, hot glue, a container and marshmallows. We started out by gluing the foam around the exterior of the container. We then cut a block from the foam to sit on the inside and cushion the egg under impact. We wrapped a silicone swim cap around the outside to hold the foam steady while in motion. We used silicone swim caps because that type of material has the ability to bounce and flex.
On Friday we worked on finishing our egg drop project. To begin our group started on filling some of the holes we missed the previous day with memory foam. We found that our design was good but needed something to stabilize the egg. We came up with the idea of ooblek. Ooblek is a mixture of cornstarch and water. It has the ability to be solid and liquid. We thought if the egg was submerged in the mixture then the ooblek would absorb most of the shock caused by the drop. It took a while to finish the mixture. We had to measure the water and cornstarch exact. After it was done we tested a raw egg in the mix. The egg kept rising to the top. We filled a bag with ooblek and put it on top of the egg. It finally stayed down and sunk to the bottom.
One thing I need to improve on is remembering to log my Science Olympiad hours. I always do the hours but forget to log them.
For this link it is some cool things you can do with ooblek http://www.sciencebob.com/blog/?p=608
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