Help! - Project Ideas

[The Thing]

Our teacher for science requires an "advanced" project for our Enriched class, and some of it might be entered into the provincial science fair. I have absolutely no idea as to what to make. Any ideas on what I can experiment with? This is just like a science fair project.

I am 10th grade, and am interested mainly in Chemistry, but Physics & Engineering are good too.

As for the difficulty, I was thinking as advanced as possible, more exciting than an vinegar-soda volcano and less lethal than a tesla coil. Sonouminescence, or some other topics of that level which I CAN DO AN EXPERIMENT WITH. And I prefer an experiment in which very few people have died.

Thanks a lot.

[Externet]

Hi.

Just develop an experiment to measure the propagation speed of gravity.

[insane_alien]

you could measure the wave legnth of light to the nanometer

 

equipment: 1 Laser

1 diffraction grating(you need to know the distance between the lines

1 wall/sheet/screen

1 meter stick that does millimeters (sometimes you can use a 30cm ruler but there is a greater error)

 

And this is where i forget the calculations you need to do... help plz... guys....

[timo]

My favorite experiment is still:

 

Take a walk from the canteen to your lab with a cup of coffee in your hand. How much coffee is spilled on the floor?

- Plot the coffee loss over the distance travelled.

- Discuss the dependency on your speed.

- How does nonuniform walking affect the outcome? Is there a lower/higher likelyness of resonance catastrophe?

- What is the influence of the cup´s geometry? Due to the famous "wet trouser"-theorem by A. T. Heist there will always be a resonance frequency available in a spherical cup so it´s impossible to transport coffee in a spherical cup without spilling it when one walks uniformly.

- How does the usage of another fluid with a different damping constant for the oscillations affect the outcome of the experiments?

- Assuming sensible numbers for the cost of coffee and coffee automats: From the results gathered above, what´s the economically best densitiy for coffee automats in an average university?

 

That should keep you occupied for quite some time.

[The Thing]

This project will have to have some sort of outcome, that is like the conclusion, before that a hypothesis, exactly like a science fair project. So far I think the spherical cup coffee experiment seems interesting, any other ideas??

[Klaynos]

an investigation into friction?

 

sliding blocks with a pully system with masses attached.

 

Could change the surface and see how this alters the coeficient of friction...

[The Thing]

I rather like something seemingly complex, so I could get a good mark on it =). Something impressive looking, like a van der graaf generator or even a tesla coil mentioned, but less lethal.