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Tara Chklovski

an publication

out of paper and sticksMAKING MACHINES

Published by: IRIDESCENT532 22nd StreetLos Angeles, CA 90007

Sponsored by:Office of Naval Research (O.N.R.)

Written by:Tara Chklovski

Edited by: Ioana Urma

Book Design & Cover Illustration by:IOANA/Ioana UrmaCover is drawing of "How Things Work Mural" based on Iridescent's education-al topics, painted in Iridescent's 1st L.A. Science Studio space (17'x20', 2010).

Photography by:Anna Beatriz GalvaoMariana RutiglianoLinda Wong

Experiment models by:Alay BhayaniJeffrey Cui Shraddha Doshi

Gloria HernandezJuan Hernandez Christopher HongDarryl HwangDenisa Lleshi Dorina LleshiMatthew Miller Nellie QuernsElizabeth Windler

Technical advisors:Tim ChklovskiToby CumberbatchSylvie DenuitMatthew LothJohn McArthurKevin MiklaszThomas StakelonSinchai Tsao

Pedagogical advisors:Erika AllisonVanessa GarzaLuz Rivas

Font is: Avenir, by Adrian Frutiger, 1988

Copyright © Iridescent, 2011All rights reserved

No part of this book may be repro-duced or utilized in any form of by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Inquiries should be addressed to: Iridescent, 532 22nd Street, Los Angeles, CA 90007.

birdboatrube goldberg machinehot air ballooncool houselaser mazeeye bowlheartplumbing systemspeaker

introduction

further reading

cont

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4 MAKING MACHINES out of paper and sticks

intr

oduc

tion

Have you ever wondered how a gull’s wings work or how your heart is

able to pump blood up against gravity, how a hot air balloon is able

to lift hundreds of pounds just with hot air? These are just some of

the amazing things that you will learn about – by creating your very

own unique working versions.

To do so, you will need to keep a few things in mind.

• Creating something is very satisfying. There is no joy quite like that

of creating something new, beautiful, unique, something that is com-

pletely yours!

• But creating, building, designing, inventing and engineering takes

hard work. You must be willing to put in some effort into doing and

especially in learning and experimenting.

• You need to be courageous. Your model may fail the first time, the

second time, the third time. But it is OK! The Wright brothers stud-

ied birds, made observations, tested various designs that failed for

years and years before their first successful flight. So it is OK for your

model to fail many times. Just be brave, listen to what your model is

telling you and make changes each time you test it. It will work!

• Play around with the materials! Observe, notice how they interact

with one another, with your model, with the world. For instance, have

you taken two magnets and tried to push like poles together? How

far away do you start to feel the repulsion? What does it feel like

when the magnets are moved off-axis to each other? What about

moving one around the other in a circle? Try these things! That's how

you will learn! Only when you play with, observe and listen, will you

begin to understand how the world around you works. This is how

the great scientists and inventors worked. And you will be one if you

do the same!

Welcome and share in the pleasure of finding things out!

make a…


In nature, birds with long, narrow wings - Sea Gulls, Albatrosses,

Swallows and Swifts - are very good gliders. They float in the air for

a long time without flapping. Can you think of some other birds with

long, narrow wings that are good gliders?

If you look from the side, you may notice that birds’ wings are curved.

This curved wing shape is called an airfoil. An airfoil changes the

direction of the flow of air: it pushes the flow down.

According to Newton's laws of motion, if air is pushed down by the

airfoil (the curved wing shape), then the airfoil will be pushed up by

the air, causing lift. The wings, and bird, lift up. This is the concept

of Action-Reaction: every force exerted has an equal and opposite

force exerted back. You can do a test of this by throwing a basketball

while standing on a skateboard. Did you move in the opposite direc-

tion from the ball (you should have!)? Your movement backwards is

caused by the force of the basketball pushing back on you.

Look also at the angle of the wing (from the side). Do you notice a

difference when the wing is angled more steeply? The more steeply

the wing is angled, the more lift will be generated, and the bird will

go up higher.

POSTER BOARD OR STIFF SHEET OF PAPER (1 SHEET)

NOSE WEIGHT (PAPER CLIPS OR PLAY-DOH)

TAPE

SCISSORS

RULER

1. Observe different birds in nature or by looking at videos.

2. Draw the different wing shapes of the birds you see glide far.

3. Invent a wing shape design of your own by first sketching it out

on a piece of paper. This will help you plan out the design shape

carefully, because once you cut it out, it will be hard to join the

pieces back together!

GLIDE! Design + build + fly bird-shaped glid-

ers. Observe which designs fly the far-

thest.

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experiment

bird

9

4. Build the body of your bird. Try and choose a shape that will be

strong and can survive many crashes.

5. Cut out the horizontal and vertical part of the tail.

6. Draw and cut out the wings. Cut a variety of wing shapes to try.

7. Tape the parts together, making sure the wings and tail are

taped evenly on the body.

8. Put a little play-doh or a few paper clips in the nose, as a weight.

9. Throw the plane gently and see how it flies. If it goes up or dives

too steeply, it is not balanced. What do you think you can do to

balance it better? Try it with the different wings and wing angles.

What angle works best on your bird? Why do you think this

angle works best? What wing shape helps your bird go far-

thest? What are you proud of observing from nature?

reflect


Have you ever wondered how sails help a boat to move forward?

You may have noticed that the sails of sailboats - pushed by the wind

or flow of air - are curved (in cross-section or when looking at them

from the side, bottom or top). This curved shape is called an airfoil

(just like on a bird’s wing - see bird project p. 10). In the sailboat, the

airfoil changes the direction of the flow of air, pushing the air back in

a certain direction. You can think of it as a kind of reflector for the air.

The air hits the sail or airfoil and bounces back off of it. The direc-

tion the air is pushed off of it depends on the angle of the sail to the

incoming wind or airflow.

When the sail or airflow push the incoming flow of air or wind back,

the boat is pushed forward. The boat is pushed forward exactly in

the opposite direction to the direction that the wind is pushed back.

This is because, as Newton's laws of motion state, for every force that

the sail exerts on the air, there must be an equal and opposite force

from the air on the sail. This is the concept of Action-Reaction.

PLASTIC BOTTLE

WOOD SKEWER

CONSTRUCTION PAPER

ALUMINUM FOIL

WIRE

TAPE

SCISSORS

RULER

LARGE BOX FAN

LARGE OPEN CONTAINER OF WATER

1. Draw out your sailboat design on a piece of paper before start-

ing. This will help you plan out the design carefully, because

once you cut the bottle, it will be hard to join the pieces back

together!

2. Based on your sketches, build the body of the boat out of the

collect

experiment

LEARNING FROM BIRDS: design + build + sail a sailboat. Observe which direction the sail needs to be pointed in

so that the boat can go forward.

boat

11

plastic bottle pieces (ask an adult for help cutting the bottle,

making sure edges aren't sharp or pointy).

3. Attach the skewer to the boat base.

4. Shape the aluminum foil into a curved sail form around the skew-

er. Design the sail so that it doesn’t get crushed (as aluminum foil

can get crushed very easily). Try and put in some support braces

using posterboard or wire.

5. Test the sailboat in the water and see which direction the boat

goes depending on how you direct the fan and how you angle

the sail.

What sail angle helps the boat sail the farthest? Why do you

think this angle works best? What sail shape helps your boat

go farthest? What aspect of your boat are you most proud of

designing?

reflect


Rube Goldberg machines are contraptions that perform simple tasks

in unique, fun, and indirect ways. Some Rube Goldberg machines

use a complicated series of actions to simply move an object from

one place to another.

Any object that is moving, has what is called kinetic energy; giving

an object more speed means giving it more kinetic energy. Kinetic

energy can be transferred from one object to another by a collision,

like when one domino tips over into another domino. Even without a

collision objects can gain kinetic energy if they fall down or roll down

a ramp. The goal of a Rube Goldberg machine is to find creative

ways of making this type of energy transfer happen using a variety of

simple machines (see experiment) attached together in the form of a

complex machine.

ANYTHING THAT YOU CAN FIND AROUND THE HOUSE!

Try and make YOUR OWN UNIQUE Rube Goldberg that has each of

the six simple machines listed below and can transfer energy in at

least five different ways:

PULLEY: A simple machine that uses grooved wheels and a rope to

raise, lower or move a load.

LEVER: A stiff bar that rests on a support (called a fulcrum) which lifts

or moves loads.

WEDGE: An object with at least one slanting side ending in a sharp

edge, which moves material apart.

WHEEL & AXLE: A wheel an axle lifts or moves loads.

INCLINED PLANE: A slanting surface connecting a lower level to a

higher level.

SCREW: An inclined plane wrapped around a pole which holds

things together or lifts materials.

1. Decide on the task that you want the Rube Goldberg machine to

do. For example, to move a ball into a box or to open a door.

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experiment

ENERGY TRANSFER! Design + build + set in

motion a Rube Gold-berg machine.

rube goldberg machine

13

reflect

2. Think of ways you can make your materials interact with each

other. How can one energy transfer start a chain of actions?

Test each energy transfer before putting the entire contraption

together. Make sure you think about five different energy trans-

fers that you will implement.

3. Once all the testing is done, put your Rube Goldberg together

and watch it perform the task you chose to do in a very compli-

cated, but fun way. If the Rube Goldberg stops midway, retest

and redesign that failed energy transfer.

How many different energy transfers did your Rube Goldberg

have? What are some energy transfers that you observe in

your room, outside your window, in the playground? How

can you modify your Rube Goldberg machine to use wind to

transfer energy? How about water? How about solar energy?


collect

experiment

Why do hot air balloons rise up? Hot air balloons rise because they

are filled with air hotter than the air around them, and hot air is light-

er than cold air. Why is hot air lighter than cold air? When a material

is heated, its molecules absorb the heat or energy and with this extra

energy are able to move around at greater speeds.

In objects that can stretch and expand, molecules with extra energy

can move farther apart. When the molecules move, the object grows

in size or volume. It doesn't change in weight, though, because the

number of molecules doesn't change. It is made of the same number

of molecules, just located farther apart. This makes the object less

dense, but maintains its weight.

When we start heating the air of a hot air balloon, the air molecules

start moving around with more energy. As the hotter air expands,

the balloon expands, but its weight does not change right away.

Once the balloon has expanded as far as it can, then the energetic

molecules start escaping out of the hole at the bottom. This leaves

less molecules inside, making the balloon lighter than the cooler air

around it. The balloon rises.

POSTER BOARD (1 SHEET)

TISSUE PAPER (10-12 SHEETS)

GLUE STICK

SCISSORS

RULER

PIECE OF WIRE TO SHAPE INTO A RING

STRING

HAIR DRYER

1. Draw and cut a template for the hot air balloon side panels out of

the poster board. You will use this to make tissue paper cutouts

of the same size. Draw the typical shape you see in modern bal-

loons or try creating new shapes you would like to test.

2. Using your template, cut 8 tissue paper side panels.

HOT AIR! Design + build + fly a hot-air

balloon to lift a weight. The better designed

the balloon is, the more weight it will be

able to lift.

hot air balloon

15

reflect

3. Glue the panels together into a balloon shape.

4. Cut out a circular piece of tissue paper to cover the top of the

hot air balloon and glue it on.

5. Cut some wire coil and shape into a circle.

6. Place the coil at the bottom of the balloon, fold over the tissue

paper over it, covering it, and glue it in place.

7. Make a basket out of the poster board and attach it with string or

tape to this coil ring, and place a weight in the basket.

8. Heat up the balloon with the hair dryer, let it go and watch it rise!

How do you think the size of the balloon affects how much

weight is in the basket? Why do you think size makes a differ-

ence? Does shape make a difference? Look at early balloon

designs. Try them out and see if a particular shape is better

at carrying more weight. What are you proud of learning?


If you have an attic space or have ever been in an attic space on

warm days, have you noticed how much warmer it is in there than

in the rest of the house? How about in the basement? In the days

before refrigerators, basements - because they are much cooler -

were used to store food items. Next time it's hot inside, try lying

down on the floor and see how you feel. It's cooler than when stand-

ing up, isn't it?

Warm air rises to the top because it is lighter, or less dense, than

cold air. Air molecules with more heat, or energy, move around at

greater speeds and end up farther apart. So in the same amount of

space (volume), warmer air will have less molecules in it than colder

air. This makes it less dense or lighter, and it makes it rise up.

As warm air rises and cold air sinks, a directional movement of air is

created which is called a convection current.

Have you ever wondered why on a warm day it is warmer inside a

parked car than outside? This concentration of heat inside the car

is caused by the greenhouse effect. A greenhouse is an enclosure

made of glass or other transparent materials - typically for plants -

that allows sunlight in, but then traps some of the sunlight's energy

inside. This trapped energy is heat. A car parked in the sun heats up

for the same reason, heat energy from the sunlight gets trapped.

CONSTRUCTION PAPER

TAPE

SCISSORS

TWO INCENSE STICKS & HOLDER

ONE MATCHBOX

THERMOMETER

1. Knowing that warm air rises and cold air sinks, can you think

about which parts of your house are the hottest? Sketch and

design the location of your openings (doors and windows) so that

collect

CONVECTION! Design + build a house with doors and windows

carefully positioned to help remove the hot air and cool the house pas-

sively (without using a fans or the AC). The

goal is to save energy.

CAUTION: only conduct this experiment under

adult supervision.

experiment

cool house

17

the heated air will come out and the cool outside air will come in.

2. Build your cool house out of construction paper.

3. Once the house is complete, put a lit smoking incense stick

inside the house in an incense stick holder. BE CAREFUL NOT TO

TOUCH THE PAPER WITH THE INCENSE STICK AND SET IT ON

FIRE! If the placement of windows and doors is well designed for

cooling with natural ventilation, then the smoke will come out.

4. Place a thermometer at various points inside the house. Where

do you get the highest reading?

What design worked best? What placement of openings

helped more smoke to get out of the house? Where did you

get the highest temperature reading? Why do you think this

is? Can you think of some other examples of convection you

can see around the house?

reflect


collect

experimentCAUTION: only conduct

this experiment under adult supervision.

Design a laser maze that reflects the laser

beam through as many obstacles as possible.

When light waves hit a material, they cause the atoms (specifically,

the electrons in metals) to oscillate (move back and forth). These

oscillations cause the atoms to radiate a small wave back out in all

directions. The reflected waves of many atoms combine to form a vis-

ible reflection.

In the case of metals, the electrons in the atom's outer shell (farthest

from the central nucleus) are not attached to the atom; they are free

to move throughout the metal with very little resistance. When light

shines on metal, it makes these free electrons oscillate or vibrate and

the energy reflected is visible light.

A mirror is mostly made of glass, but it also has a thin metallic film

on the back side. It is that metallic film that reflects the light passing

through the glass. The glass is only there to hold up the very thin film.

A few ideas, tips and terms to be aware of:

∙ Light paths are only visible when there are particles in the interven-

ing medium (such as smoke or fog or dust particles in the air).

∙ Moving a mirror back doesn’t increase the amount viewed in it.

∙ Incidence angle = angle at which light hits a surface.

∙ Reflection angle = angle at which light is reflected off a surface.

FOG MACHINE & FOG JUICE (FROM A PARTY SUPPLY STORE)

LASER POINTER (KEY CHAIN OR BIGGER IF POSSIBLE)

MIRRORS

CONSTRUCTION PAPER

TAPE

POPSICLE STICKS

SCISSORS

1. Cut a pattern of holes in the construction paper. Your obstacle

course will be more challenging if the holes are very small.

2. Glue popsicle sticks along the side of the paper so that the

obstacle course can stand upright. Stand them up in play-doh.

laser maze

19

reflect

3. Use play-doh to make the mirrors stand upright.

4. Turn on the fog machine and point it towards the obstacle course.

5. Turn on your laser pointer and reflect the beam off of as many

mirrors as possible so that the beam can go through the obstacle

course holes, from one end of the maze to the other.

Do you see a red path of light when you shine the laser point-

er onto a mirror or something else? Is it what you expected?

What happens when you add fog? Do you see the light path?

What do you think is happening? Where is the image you see

in the mirror? Can you illustrate your thoughts on how it is

formed? What happens when you move the mirror back? Do

you see more of yourself or of an object? Can you draw and

explain how the light travels in your obstacle course?


Light waves travel at different speeds through different mediums

(materials). As light crosses from one medium into another, the same

wave will change the speed at which it is traveling. This happens, as

you probably guessed, because the two mediums interact with the

light in different ways.

The way that light travels through a materials is by passing on energy.

As a light wave enters a material, it hits and gets absorbed by the

electron of an atom in that material. The electron doesn't keep the

energy for long though, and soon it re-emits the light wave.

This process continues from atom to atom, where each atom is like

a baseball player catching the light wave and then throwing it to the

next atom. The atoms of different materials take different amounts

of time to catch and throw the light waves, making light travel more

slowly when it enters a material. In a vacuum (an empty medium

without atoms) light travels at a speed of 299,792,458 meters per sec-

ond or about 186,282 miles per second. Through a material, it takes

longer.

Imagine sitting on a boat and looking out at a fish in a lake. For your

eye to see the fish, there must be light traveling from the fish to your

eye. This light wave travels slowly through the water and then when

it enters the air it speeds back up. The path of the light wave makes

an angle with the boundary between the water and the air. At this

boundary the path of the light bends.

To understand why light bends, lets use an analogy. Imagine you are

pushing a stray shopping cart (lightwave) from the grass (water) onto

a parking lot (air). If you go straight from the grass into the parking

lot the cart will speed up after crossing the boundary. What if you

approach the boundary at an angle, so that the front right tire hits

the pavement first? What happens?

The front right wheel will begin moving faster than the other wheels

and this will cause the cart to start to turn to the left. Once you leave

the grass you will be pointed in a new direction. Going over the

REFRACTION! Build an eye model and see how

its lens bends light to reproduce an image.

eye bowl

21

boundary bent your path, just like the light wave's path became bent,

all because the wave moves at different speeds in different materials.

This is called refraction.

Understanding refraction can help you better understand how the

eye works. The lens in your eye (the front curved part of the eyeball)

bends the light waves which enters it. The light waves are bent so

they come together or “focus” at a particular distance back from the

lens, called the focal distance.

The lens in your eye works the same as other lenses (camera, tele-

scope, microscope): it bends the light waves, changing their direc-

tion of travel. Lenses can do this because they are made of a dif-

ferent material than the mediums or materials around them. Light

passing through the air is bent by a glass lens.

If an object is placed in front of a lens, some of the light that bounces


off the object will pass into the lens. This bounced light is refracted

through the lens, and becomes focused into an “image.” Think about

a camera. If you put an object in front of the camera, light bounces

off the object and passes through the lens where it is refracted. The

lens uses refraction to focus the light to form an image. On a digital

camera, that image is what is displayed on the back screen.

Pick up one of the magnifying lenses, hold it away from you and look

at your friends through it. How can you tell that the light passing

through the lens is changing direction?

TWO CLEAR PLASTIC BOWLS (THAT YOU CAN SEE THROUGH

CLEARLY, WITHOUT DISTORTION)

A SHEET OF WAXED PAPER OR TRACING PAPER

CLEAR PACKAGING TAPE (OR MASKING TAPE)

SCISSORS

A LENS OR MAGNIFYING GLASS

1. Put the bowls together, rim to rim (opening to opening).

2. Tape them together. It should look sort of like a flattened ball

when you are done. This model represents the eye-ball.

3. Cut a circle out of the waxed paper or tracing paper. The cut-out

paper should cover the bottom of one of the bowls.

4. Now tape it to the bottom of one of the bowls. The paper will act

as a screen for the image to form.

5. Tape the lens to the bottom of the bowl on the side opposite the

paper.

6. Place your eye model between the object you want to look at

and your own eye. Adjust the distance between the model and

your eye until a clear image is formed on the screen. Look at the

paper. Do you see an image on the paper? What is the shape of

the image?

7. Is it upside down? What is its color?

8. Point the eye model in a slightly different direction and observe

what happens to the image. What do you see if you point the

lens of your eye model at your friends or parents?

experiment

collect

23

9. Describe the image you see.

What was the hardest part of building the model? Can you

use the eye model to show your friends or parents how an

eye works? What was the best part of this experiment?

reflect


Your heart pumps and circulates blood to every part of your body so

that all of your cells get the oxygen and nutrients they need to sur-

vive. In a single day, your heart can pump about 1,000-2,500 gallons

of blood. To keep you alive, your heart works without any breaks or

rests! But, unfortunately, the heart is not indestructible. People can

suffer from the break down or weakening of the heart, or they can be

born with a weaker heart. This can result in heart failure, where the

heart can no longer pump enough blood for the body's needs.

In the most severe cases of heart failure, the only long term solu-

tion is to replace the heart. For many years the only way to replace

a heart was through a transplant, where a failing heart is replaced

with a living heart from an organ donor. Since this process was, for

many reasons, very difficult, more recently, doctors, scientists, and

engineers have come up with another transplant option: an artificial

heart!

Making an artificial heart was very hard because it was trying to take

the place of something very complex. There are four chambers in

your heart, and each one has a specific job to do to make sure your

body has enough oxygen. Blood comes into the right atrium from

the body. This blood is low in oxygen and high in carbon dioxide.

Blood is then pumped into the right ventricle and the next stop is the

lungs to drop off the carbon dioxide and pick up more oxygen. From

the lungs the blood is pumped back to the left atrium and then on to

the left ventricle which finally pumps the blood back into your body.

An artificial heart has to be designed to do the job of each original

chamber correctly. That's tough to do! On top of that, an artificial

heart needs a new power source. A real human heart is made of

muscle, and just like the muscles in your arms and legs, the heart

depends on the food you eat to give it the energy it needs to pump

blood, but an artificially heart can't use the food you eat.

There are several artificial hearts that exist, but they too have some

issues such as size, weight, and attachments.

CIRCULATION IN YOUR HEART! Design

+ build + operate an artificial heart.

heart

25

JARVIK 7 was the first artificial heart used in people 1982. This heart

has only two pumps which replace the two lower chambers of a

person's heart that has stopped working. The power system for this

heart is large and bulky and it connects to the pumps through tubes

that poke through the skin – ouch!

ABIOCOR, a more recent version, has a mechanical pump which

completely replaces the pumping action of the lower chambers of

a person's heart. It allows doctors to completely remove a person’s

heart and replace it with a whole new system. The difficulty with this

model is that a lot of equipment has to be placed inside the body.

The equipment is bulky and puts a lot of pressure on the other

organs.


reflect

PLASTIC TUBING

FOUR SMALL PLASTIC BOTTLES

FOOD COLORING

THICK STRAWS

THIN STRAWS

SCISSORS

TAPE

BALLOONS

1. Draw a diagram of the four chambers of the heart and how they

connect to each other to use as an organizational guide. You will

use the plastic bottles to represent these chambers.

2. Take the four bottles and make holes in each of the caps, big

enough to fit the tubing.

3. Tape two bottles together with the cap sides touching. Do the

same with the two remaining bottles.

4. Take a sharp pencil or scissors and make a hole at the bottom of

the first two bottles that represent the upper chambers of the

heart and two holes on the top of the bottles that will represent

the lower chambers of the heart.

5. Use the clear tubing to connect the top bottles to the bottom

bottles through the holes made. The bottom bottle should have

the rubber tubing touching the bottom of the lower bottle so

that when the bottom bottle is squeezed water will flow up the

tube and pour water into the top bottle.

6. Remember to put valves in the caps of the bottom bottle so that

no water is leaking back up to the top bottle when the bottom

is squeezed. Do this for the other side two in order to complete

your four chambered heart.

What can you change about your four chambered heart to

make it pump better? What would happen if you only had a

three chambered heart? Where would the blood from the top

chamber go? Why does the heart need a left and right side?

experiment

collect

27

paste yourheartdiagramhere


Your circulatory system controls the movement of blood through

your heart and throughout your whole body. The blood circulates

(moves) in a continuous, closed loop. The movement is generated

(started) by the pumping action of the heart.

Your house also has a circulatory system, but instead of blood, it

pushes water around. It is called the plumbing system and it is com-

posed of pumps, pipes, and valves.

Both your body and your house have circulatory systems that oper-

ate using the same parts and concepts:

∙ A pump: the heart (body); a mechanical pump (house).

∙ Distribution vessels: arteries and veins (body); pipes (house).

∙ Control valves: valves in the heart (body); faucets and the toilet

lever (house).

∙ They transport both nutrition and waste: blood transports oxygen

and nutrients and removes cell waste (body); the plumbing system

carries both fresh and waste water (house).

One of the most important tasks of the circulatory system is to

deliver nutrition and remove waste through blood - to and from the

cells - at incredibly high speed. The size of your blood vessels con-

trols the speed of blood flow: in large vessels the flow is slow, while

in small vessels it speeds up. This is because the same amount of

blood needs to move through under the same pressure (put out by

the pump of your heart). If the opening is smaller, the pressure will be

greater and it will be pushed through faster.

PLASTIC TUBING

THICK STRAWS

THIN STRAWS

SCISSORS

TAPE

FIVE CUPS

BALLOONS

Design a plumbing system which can

distribute water to five “cells” in your body in

under 30 seconds!

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plumbing system

29

1. Sketch ideas for your design, figuring out how the system will

work to fill up all the cells at the same time. This is necessary.

2. Use the materials listed to construct your plumbing system.

3. Check to see whether or not you have any leaks in your pipes.

Also check to see if you need to add any valves to control the

flow of “blood.”

4. Pour water into the entry part of your plumbing system and

watch how it flows!

What could you change about your plumbing system in order

for the ”blood” to flow to the cells more quickly? How about

more slowly? How does the size of your pipes affect the

speed of blood flow?

reflect

experiment


collect

experiment

USING PRESSURE WAVES TO CREATE

MUSIC! Design + build a speaker that will use

electricity and magnets to put pressure on the

air and create sound waves (musical sounds).

Have you wondered how you are able to hear a sound that was emit-

ted really far away? Most times you can't feel or see anything. Some-

times though, if the sound is loud, you can even feel vibrations!

Sound can be thought of as waves of pressure that move longitu-

dinally (in the directional line of the sound without going up and

down). Sound can move through all kinds of mediums: air, water or

even hard materials like wood.

The medium or material the sound moves through is made up of

tiny molecules. When these molecules are made to vibrate by some

force, they transfer or pass the vibrations on to the molecules next

to them. This continuous transfer results in a sound wave, a wave of

transferred vibrations.

You can create a sound with your vocal chords, but also by moving

something with your hands, such as waving a fan through the air. Try

it. Do you hear something? Those are molecules of air passing the

energy you threw at them on as vibrations in the form of a sound

wave. You put pressure on the air and made it vibrate!

NEODYMIUM MAGNET

WIRE 32 OR 34 AWG (AMERICAN WIRE GAUGE)

PLASTIC CUP

ALLIGATOR CLIPS

SANDPAPER

TAPE

GLUE

SCISSORS

PENCIL

HEADPHONES

1. Leaving a 10 centimeter tail of the wire free at the beginning and

at the end, wrap the wire around a rolled up piece of construc-

tion paper about 50 times.

speaker

31

reflect

2. Use sandpaper to rub the insulation off the ends of the tails.

3. Tape the magnet against the outside, bottom, of a plastic cup.

4. Cut the speakers off of the headphones and strip away the plas-

tic insulation to expose all four wires. Sand away any insulating

coatings on these wires.

5. Plug in the headphone jack and turn on the sound for the device

you are using.

6. Connect some of the exposed wires from the headphones to

the free tails of the coiled wire. Test your choice by holding the

rolled-up paper up and down with the coiled wire by the magnet.

Experiment with the connection until you hear the right sounds.

How can you change your design to increase the volume

of your speaker? What can you do if the sound quality isn’t

good? How does the size of the cup affect the sound?


furt

her

read

ing

The Great International Paper Airplane Book by George Dippel,

Howard Gossage and Jerry Mander, 1971.

Body. Make It Work! by Andrew Haslam, 2000.

Flight. Make It Work! by Andrew Haslam, 2000.

Insects. Make It Work! by Andrew Haslam, 2000.

Photography. Make It Work! by Andrew Haslam, 2000.

Sound. Make It Work! by Andrew Haslam, 2000.

Everyday Machines: Amazing Devices We Take for Granted by

John Kelly, with David Burnie and Obin, 1995.

The Robot Zoo: A Mechanical Guide to the Way Animals Work

by John Kelly, Dr. Philip Whitfield and Obin, 1994.

The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay, with Neil Ardley,

1998.

The Amazing Book of Paper Boats: 18 Boats to Fold and Float

by Melcher Media (creator), with Willy Bullock (illustrator) and

Jerry Roberts (text author), 2001.

Illustrated Guide to Aerodynamics by Hubert Smith, 1991.

700 Science Experiments for Everyone compiled by UNESCO,

1964.

EASY

33

Amateur Naturalist: A Practical Guide to the Natural World by

Gerald Durrell with Lee Durrell, 1993.

Why Things Break: Understanding the World By the Way It

Comes Apart by Mark Eberhart, 2004.

The Seven Secrets of How to Think Like a Rocket Scientist by

James Longuski, 2006.

How to Design a Boat by John Teale, 2003.

The Simple Science of Flight by Henk Tennekes, 1996.

Physics, Fun, and Beyond: Electrifying Projects and Inventions

from Recycled and Low-Cost Materials by Eduardo de

Campos Valadares, 2005.

The Flying Circus of Physics by Jearl Walker, 2006.

ADVANCED

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