Posted: 3/16/2012 1:52:56 PM EDT
| I have to help my daughter with a science fair projects. Any ideas? 5th grade level. |
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Wow, these are real things? Not just a convenient plot device in TV shows? (like the "summer camp" thing)
From watching TV with my kids, I can only say that baking soda volcanoes and doomsday devices are always a bad idea. As is asking the bandana wearing hooligan down the street for help. |
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Here's the thing to remember, let HER do it. You can guide or help her, but let HER do it. Help her understand whats going on and let her see the results. Science fairs are supposed to be about the kids. This can be a great opportunity for your daughter to learn and you to bond with her some more.
I volunteer to judge school, county and state science fairs. If its evident the parents did the work, I mark the kid down as low as I'm allowed. Unfortunately in my area that happens alot, tons of engineering parents. I know godamn well some grade school kid isnt working out reynolds numbers for their windmill turbine or coding their microcontroller. Helping is cool, doing it isnt. |
She gets credit for jumping on the eco bandwagon(worth at least 10 points on her grade) and you get a buzz.
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What are your daughter's interests? She wants to do something with electricity because her old man is a sparky. Get an electronics project from radio shack or ebay or something. I made a crystal radio at about that age for my science fair. ETA, a simple light activated circuit would be easy and fun too. A photo-resistor and a transistor could be used to demonstrate solid state switching (the basis of all of our modern day gadgetry). Make a circuit with a knife switch to demonstrate mechanical switching, then one with a transistor to demonstrate solid state switching. Make it power a light, radio, fan or something small like that. |
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What are your daughter's interests? She wants to do something with electricity because her old man is a sparky. Which kinds of fruits vegetables make the best batteries? Why? Acid vs Alkiline ph? Need varius fruits, volt meter, litmus paper, etc. SHE could do this. |
| I remember doing a water desalination experiment. I took seawater and did various thigs to make it fresh. I had a salt meter from the aquarium store, and just went at it. I had boiling in a still, solar still, filtration, and freezing. lots of factor to measure and report on other than salinity such as amount of energy used, amount of fresh water extracted, and time. I also did a side report on just how salty water can be for safe/unsafe consumption. I took top prize :D |
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a true science fair project has a theory, a hypothesis, and a design of experiment.
If she want to do something with electricity read up on electric generators. Make up a simple strator and rotor. see what different sizes of wire, number of coils, wraps of wire per coil, and rpm makes on generating electricity. I've also seen people get a hand cranked generator and demenstrate the physical work along with the calculated/measured energy it takes to power a regular buld, cfl, and led buld of the same lumens. I also know of a dad and son that assembled a model steam engine and attached it to a small dc motor. They then ran different psi air through the engine and graphed the measured current generated by the motor. I've also seen a small gauss rifle, where they charge the capacitor for different potentials and then discharged the "gun" and measured the distance the little slug went. I think the rifle was mostly small neo magnets with a electomagnet to start the slug moving. |
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What are your daughter's interests? She wants to do something with electricity because her old man is a sparky. Stake some resistors down to a plywood base & add a 10 volt power supply and some switches to demonstrate series & parallel voltage drop. You can then help her write a paper on OHM's LAW. Some colored LED's to show which branch is evergized by the switches would give the visual cue on where to measure the voltages, and the lesson is that the various combinations of series voltage drops always add up to the source voltage. A DVM is all you need to take the readings, just do the best you can to scale the resistors for "whole numbers" A good added touch would be a digital temp gauge to show the resistors heating up as the current (and power disapation) increases with the switch changes. It's interactive and very educational. |
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What are your daughter's interests? She wants to do something with electricity because her old man is a sparky. Some general ideas: -Making electricity via solar cells, vegetable/metal cells, thermocouples (with solar heat sources,maybe?), hydrodynamic (dams and turbines) -Using electricity for charging batteries (how do batteries work? Lead acid or NiMh? how much return do you get for charging them?) -Communications-how do infrared remotes work, how can you make one do the work of several? -More communications-do cell phones do better at sending text messages when the signal is too weak fhor voice? -Yet more communications-how low can the battery get and still allow contact? I hope there's some food for thought in this... |
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Drive a laptop wireless transmitter with power 2n to test the inverse square law. Then hypothesize and test if it is the laptop's power or the router's power that limits range in a wireless network. Form a hypothesis on whether high ping or packet loss adversely affects the maximum score one can attain in COD online playing. Then test by playing on various networks that have different values for each. |
| In 5th grade, I made a light bulb using a jar with some wires going through the lid sealed with silicone. I used steel wool for a filament and used and candle to burn up the oxygen in the jar. Used a 6v lantern battery for power. I think I did pretty well against some of the other lame entries. |