Strength of Materials - April 15, 2015

These are the pictures from the project I did in the fall. Again, because I had to load the books carefully, and the structures did collapse, I don't have "action" pictures. But these are some of the examples of the support structure the students from 2nd - 5th grades built.

Previous Supplies List:
25 straws (Dollar Store variety)
6 bamboo chopsticks (3 pairs)
scotch tape

New Supplies List:
25 straws (Dollar Store variety)
6 chopsticks (3 pairs)
scotch tape

I couldn't get my hands on the same, stronger bamboo chopsticks, so I had to settle for either thinner, weaker bamboo chopsticks or regular wooden ones. I bought both types, but they didn't quite hold up. Still, it doesn't make this project any less fun to do.

Project Instructions:

1. Hand out 25 straws and 6 chopsticks to each team of students.
2. Talk about load distribution.
3. Build and test.
4. Get more material (another pair of chopsticks or 5 straws) and make repairs. And test again.

The records to beat for next year:
2nd graders - 18 lbs.
3rd graders - 32 lbs.
4th graders - 36 lbs.
5th graders - 46 lbs.

Some load pictures:

Some very interesting designs:

 I have many pictures, but I couldn't post all of them. These are some contenders and some interesting ones.

Have fun.

A Stupendous STEM website

I came across this website a couple of months ago when I was looking around for a variety of project ideas. I wanted to find more Chemistry and  Biology project ideas, specifically, and I love this website. 

https://www.teachengineering.org/ 

BUT I do have to admit it does go in depth, and it may not be what you're looking for. Sometimes, it has too much information for what I'm trying to do in the elementary schools, but I appreciate the information.

I think you'll recognize some of the projects in the future because I'm currently working to simplify them for the elementary level students.

Have fun.

Awesome Books - Igraine the Brave by Cornelia Funke

I have a little girl who loves to play outside, get muddy, and hang from anything she can and was a knight for Halloween two years ago. I think she'll love this book, but first I bought this book for my little boy. And he loved it! 

Igraine is an ordinary girl who loves an adventure. Though she comes from a family of magicians (Mom, Dad, and older brother Albert who is a magician-in-training) living in an old, crumbling castle named Pimpernel, she dreams of becoming an accomplished knight. It's her life long (all twelve years of it) dream, but when all she has is her great-grandfather's old  chain mail and sparring some enchanted opponents, it seems like a hopeless dream.

Life is boring at the castle. Nothing exciting happens there. In fact, nothing exciting has happened since she was born. Just before she turned twelve, an accident with magic spells turns her parents into pigs, Osmund, the nephew of their next door neighbor, plans to invade their castle, and take her parents' magical singing books. Osmund wants the books so that he could overthrow the king.

Lucky for the inhabitant of the Pimpernel Castle, Igraine's parents gave her a new suit of armor with a helmet for her 12th birthday, and she's ready to fight and protect her family and home. 

Igraine and Albert want to turn their parents back to human form, but they are missing some key ingredients that make up the potion. They have to find a way to hold on to the castle and find the missing ingredients.

Albert defends the castle against Osmund while Igraine goes in search of the missing ingredients. Ultimately, she finds the missing ingredients and with the help of Sorrowful Knight of the Mount of Tears, she ends the siege of the Pimpernel Castle. He also taught her about the rules of chivalry, and she was on the road of becoming a real knight.

This book is filled with fantastic magical, whimsical details such as a talking cat (with the help of some magical powder), a giant, a Sorrowful Knight, a henchman named Spiky Knight, etc. But, best of all, it reminds us that we could do anything we set our minds to accomplish, and always follow our dreams, no matter how foolish they seem at times. 

Awesome Books - David and Goliath by Malcom Gladwell - April 7, 2015

I don’t usually read non-fiction (except some history) but I’ve read several of Malcolm Gladwell’s books (The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers). I guess I should review all these since I really like them all. Anyhow, the reason I like Malcolm Gladwell’s books is that he starts with something you think you know already. Something most of us would dismiss quickly and wonder why anyone would want to spend time delving into it. But therein lies his magic.

He starts the book with the story of David and Goliath. This is one story that almost everyone thinks he or she knows, right? A little shepherd David with a rounded stone and his slingshot against a giant of a man wearing full armor and carrying a javelin, a spear, and a sword. Do we even need to think about who is going to win this match before we bet on the winner? But, Malcolm Gladwell goes on to explain that it was really a one-sided match up, and it was David, not Goliath who had all the advantage. Almost from the beginning, a positive outcome was assured…for David.

*****SPOILER ALERT*****

I’m just going to summarize these people’s experiences in a couple of sentences.

The Advantages of Disadvantages (and the Disadvantages of Advantages)

Vivek Ranadive – a man who didn’t know how to play basketball game and ended up taking his daughter’s team to almost win the National Junior Basketball Championship.

Teresa DeBrito – upending the educational holy grail of class sizes…, that smaller isn’t always better and the optimum size is actually larger than you’d think.

Caroline Sacks – sending your children to Ivy League schools might give you bragging rights, but it might be one of the worst things you could do if you want your children to live their dream careers, especially in science and technology.

The Theory of Desirable Difficulty

David Boies – you wouldn’t wish dyslexia on your child. Or would you? Dyslexia might be an important contributor to dizzying success.

Emil “Jay” Freireich – how hardship in life makes a person an optimist, how German Blitz on England failed because although people died, many remote misses helped the Londoners feel invincible, and how he revolutionized the treatment of childhood leukemia.

Wyatt Walker – the most famous photograph in the history of the American civil rights movement was taken on 5/3/1963, and it’s not at all what it seems.

There are more people and topics Malcolm Gladwell covers in the last third of the book, and as usual, in almost every case, the conventional wisdom of how things should be is upended. We learn that, in many cases, one person or a small group of people could face almost impossible obstacles and triumph.

I love this book because I’ve learned so much from this book. I’ll be sure to go back and refresh every so often to make sure I don’t forget the lessons. I think everyone should read this book. As a parent of two young children, I want to recommend this book to all the parents who covet Ivy League education. That eye-opening section (Caroline Sacks) alone is worth the price of a hardback book.

* This is a re-post from another blog I write not so regularly.

Stupendous STEM Programs

The Tech Museum's Tech Challenge

If I could make one program mandatory for all intermediate elementary school children, it would be the annual Tech Challenge sponsored by The Tech Museum of San Jose. 

In 2012, I was looking for a program that would challenge my son and stumbled on this program. I thought it had a great premise to begin with - a satellite lands on an asteroid, and three fragile instrumentation packages must be delivered to three different locations to conduct chemical analysis. We, my son's team of six boys and girls, decided to enter the 2013 Tech Challenge competition (running from fall of 2012 to spring of 2013). Since this was our first year, we had no idea what we were getting into, except that it seemed like a fun project to do.

Well, over the course of six months, our team learned a lot about building a launch mechanism that would deliver the payloads (raw eggs encased in a protective covering) without damaging them, but most of all, they learned how to work effectively with others, even if they don't get along very well.

We competed again in 2014. This time, the challenge was extremely difficult. The premise of the project was that we were pretending to pump water, via wind power, over the Tehachapi Mountains in Southern California to deliver water to the people of Los Angeles area.

Our wind-powered water delivery device must pump 1 liter of water in 3 minutes. This was a very difficult project for our team of four boys. Our windmill just couldn't pump enough water fast enough. Week after miserable week, everything they tried failed, but they never gave up. The most proud moment of the tech challenge was the time when they asked to try one more solution when things failed at a test trial for 45 minutes straight, in front of judges, some audience members, and their parents.

A week later, we found a solution that worked beautifully. After the whole process, when I asked the team what they had learned this year. The boys said - we can never give up because you never know how close you are to finding a solution.

What a great lesson! Not for just a science competition, but for life. 

And we're doing it again this year.

I love this program for two reasons.

1. It mimics the PLC process very closely, and it's a great way to get a feel for a career in engineering.  
2.  It teaches some awesome life lessons, not by reading about them but by living them.

I try to get more kids to join this program whenever I get the chance. I wish I had written this piece in the fall so that more of you might have tried this program with your children, but it's never late. You can check it out this year and join the competition next year.

This year's competition dates are 4/25 (4th - 6th grades in the morning and 9th - 12th grades in the afternoon) and 4/26 (7th - 8th grades).

Why don't you come and join the fun? Admission is free. The award ceremonies take place at the end of their competition time slot.

For more information, please check out the link below.

http://thetechchallenge.thetech.org/

Fruit and Vegetable battery

Hello there. I've seen a lot of lemon battery projects, potato battery projects, etc. on Youtube, but when I tried them on my own, it seldom works the way they do on youtube, online, or in science books I've purchased. So, I tried to work out as many kinks as possible, but I still encountered some glitches. 

I've done this project in the fall of 2014, but I didn't blog about it for two reasons. Firstly, I didn't take my own photos in the classrooms. Secondly, the kids loved the experiment because it was brand new to all of them, but I found it stressful and frustrating. I was conducting the project for the first time, and I didn't know what to expect. 

Still, this one is definitely worth a try.

Supplies you need -

• pennies (anything copper is fine, too)
• galvanized nails (zinc covered)
• alligator clips (buy these at Harbor Freight, Frys, etc.)
• multi-meter (again from Harbor Freight, Frys, etc. You can get them from free from Harbor Freight with coupons.)
• assorted Resistors  > 500 ohms (Harbor Freight, Frys, or excess electronics shops)
• assorted LED's (Harbor Freight, Frys, or excess electronics shops)
• assorted fruits and vegetables 
• plastic knife
• 9 volt battery

 

The science project I've designed for the elementary school is as follows - the students need to figure out at what voltage each of the LED's (amber, red, yellow, green, and blue) light up. 

I was told that amber LED should light up at 2 volts, red LED at 3 volts, and yellow, green and blue should light up at 4 or 5, but this was not the case for me.

Summary of project instructions -

1. Create a fruit/vegetable battery by poking one nail into the one end of the fruit/vegetable and inserting a penny into the other end of the same fruit/vegetable. If the fruit/vegetable skin is tough, use the plastic knife to make an incision to insert the penny.
2. Connect an alligator clip on the nail and another on the penny.
3. Connect a multi-meter to the other side of alligator clips, measure the voltage and write it down.
4. After unclipping the alligator clips to the multi-meter, clip them to a LED and see if the LED lights up. If it does light up, write down the LED color next to the voltage.
5. Go on to the next LED. If it doesn’t light up, connect another fruit/vegetable battery to the circuit by repeating from step 1.

My classroom findings are (ranging from 2nd graders to 5th graders):

1. The alligator clips I purchased were too small for younger students.
2. The alligator clips get slippery with fruit/vegetable juice, which makes them even harder to use.
3. The LEDs I purchased (some inexpensive ones from Excess Solutions as well as some quite expensive ones from Fry's) didn't light up at expected voltages. The LEDs started lighting up ~7 volts.
4. To get 7 volts of voltage, most teams of students had to string ~10 fruits/vegetables.
5. The LEDs were supposed to light up at different voltages, but several of them lit up ~7 volts, but some of them were quite hard to see or were directional.

The LEDs didn't light up at expected voltages due to inefficiencies in the circuit. A voltage reading could be affected by how the clips were clipped to the nail or penny.

I have a 9 volt battery and assorted resistors listed in the supplies list, because if you're not sure if the LEDs are working or not, you can always test them by hooking it up to the battery.

1. Clip an alligator clip to left side of the battery and clip another alligator clip to the right side of the battery.
2. Clip one end of the resistor to one of the alligator clips.
3. Clip another alligator clip to the other end of a resistor.
4. Clip a LED between the alligator clips from the left side and the right side, making a closed loop. If the LED lights up, then LED is good. If not, go on and test another one.
5. Then use the tested LED to test your fruit and vegetable battery.

I was conducting this experiment in a 2nd grade classroom, and it was very stressful because younger students had more difficult time working with the alligator clips. Everyone was asking me to help with clipping, and there were only two adults (me and the teacher) in the classroom. I was muttering to myself that I'll never do this project again when a little girl came up to me and said, "This experiment is so awesome! I never thought you can light up a light bulb with a cucumber!"

Her team had a series of potatoes, lemons, cucumbers, etc., but that comment just made my day. She didn't see how I was stressed out because it wasn't working the way I had planned, but she only saw how neat it was to light up a LED with fruits and vegetables.

Though most students struggled to light a LED, they were very enthusiastic and really pushed themselves to get the most out of the experiment. I plan to do some variation of this project in the future; however, I'll ask for a volunteer help from each classroom.

A picture of the electronics kit I created for this project.

Again, though I was stressed out by this project, it got progressively better with each class (probably because I tossed out my worksheet and just went with the flow). Every class enjoyed this project a lot and asked me if we had another electronics experiment in out project list for this year. 

There is an experiment with conductive dough. I might give that a try soon, and let you know how it goes. In the mean time, why don't you give this one a try?

Have fun.

Fantastic Foam Bridges - March 30, 2015

I do a lot of hands-on building projects because the students seem to enjoy them the most. This project is a variation on a marshmallow bridge project. This one is really exciting for the students because there's an element of competition, which brings and urgency into the situation.

 Supplies List:

•     Foam cubes - it doesn't matter what the size is unless it's really small. 1 inch foam cubes work pretty well.
•     Toothpicks
•     Small cups to hold pennies (tiny cups you'd get from a dentist's office)
•     Paper clips
•     Pennies (up to 700 pennies)
•     Plastic tub (to catch the pennies if/when the bridge collapses)

I draw a couple of truss bridge designs on a white board and talk about the triangles in the bridge design. Then I go on to talk about the advantages of using triangle; however, I caution them about the hypotenuse. With the toothpicks, the students have to do something about the length difference.

Project Instructions:

1.     Hand out a tube of foam cubes and ~250 toothpicks to each team of students.
2.     Build whatever shape the team wants to build.
3.     Build, test, & build, again!

Here are some records to break for next year:
 
2nd graders - last year, 298 pennies
3rd graders - this year, 250 pennies
4th graders - this year, 450 pennies
5th graders - this year, 650 pennies

I don't have a lot of class pictures because I have to load the pennies very carefully, evening out the load on the bridge. So, the teachers take the pictures, but I haven't received the pictures, yet. So, here's what I have.

~150 pennies in the right and the left cups each

Try this one at home and have a wonderful time.

P.S. - The only problem with this project is that the foam cubes are quite expensive (between $17.95 - $24.95 per 102 cubes), and we can't keep reusing the foam cubes. So, it does get expensive for a class project when I try to collect $10/year/student for the science projects. If you know where I can get them cheaper, please let me know.