Physical Science

Amazing Feets

Our next new product, as some of you know, is supposed to be an athletic shoe that we will name “the Ground Gripper”. The only problem is that we haven’t yet figured out how to make this new shoe.

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The Antigravity Machine

Ask students what they think an "antigravity machine" would do ("something that helps you work against gravity"). Tell them that you are going to show them an antigravity machine for the day’s activity.

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Aquariums Under Pressure

What qualities or characteristics would you look for in the material that is used to make an aquarium?

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Energy from Thin Air?

This diagram shows the transfer of energy that occurs when electricity is produced by a wind turbine and used to charge the batteries of an electric car.

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Engineering Task 1046-B

One idea for a space station is to connect two structures with a tube or cables, and set them revolving around each other, creating centripetal force in each to simulate gravity.

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Get Your Red-Hot Solar Panels!

You will need to explain in your one-sheet how quickly the panels will repay their purchase price, based on local electricity costs that you must determine. You should find a way to illustrate this point.

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Memo to M.I.C.E. Concerning C.H.E.E.S.E.

We are considering using a new instrument for measuring the humidity in the air, but we need to determine if it is reliable. I would therefore like all of you to carry out this test, working in teams of two or three M.I.C.E. each.

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Quiet Inc.

Let’s see who can make the most soundproof cardboard box with common household materials.

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Space Heating

What qualities or characteristics would you look for in material that is used for the walls of space habitat?

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Strap Stress

When force is applied to a material, it will usually cause the material to change shape, even if just a little bit. In such a situation, the force that is applied is called “stress,” and the change of shape of the material is called “strain.”

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Two-Ton Baseball

When a bat hits a baseball, it changes the velocity of the ball. Any time the velocity of an object changes, we know that force has been applied.

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Vector Diagrams

The tech manuals team asked us to come up with a few vector diagrams to show various conditions of flight for our new 4-seater plane.

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Water Fences

Could you devise an experiment that measures the effect that wind has on evaporation? Ideally you would end up with a graph that shows how increased wind velocity leads to more water loss in a given period of time.

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Waveforms

A sound engineer must do more than just listen; he should be able to look at the sounds being produced by his equipment and rapidly identify exactly what he’s looking at.

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Wizards

We do know that the reflectivity of the material will depend both on its color and the texture of its surface, but we are going to need a lot more information on reflectivity of various materials than we presently have.

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