March 2010 Archives

Kites are a great way to explore science at high—and low— altitudes!

Watching a high-flying kite can be deceptive. It spins. It whizzes by. It arcs and circles and loop-the-loops. Maybe it looks easy. It's just a kite, after all. Right?

Harder than it Looks!

My last adventure with a kite was on the Oregon coast. It was harder than I expected to even get the kite airborne. Time after time, I tossed the kite into the air and tried to move against the wind enough to cause the kite to lift. Time after time, I found myself nursing hands in danger of getting cut by the thin standard-issue-weight twine that comes with a basic kite. The wind would play with the kite, pulling against my hands, but time after time the kite fell to the ground.

Once I did get the kite into the air, it was hard to hang on. My then 8-year-old took a spin at navigating, and then he passed the bridle over to his younger brother who was almost immediately lifted off the ground by the winds that wanted to carry the flight—and the brother—away. Photos of him on tiptoes, feet just touching the sand as he struggled to anchor the kite show the lift that was fighting against his body weight. (Okay, maybe I should have run to rescue him rather than stop to snap a photo, but it was an inexpensive kite... I didn't really think he could parasail far!)

As he let go, the kite sailed off, over the hotel and lodged in nearby electrical lines.

If you've flown a kite with kids or students, this scenario might sound familiar. If you've had to go, as I did, to the luxury kite store for replacement string, you might have found yourself faced with questions for which you didn't have answers... and found yourself staring in amazement at spools and spools of kite string in various diameters and materials.

Kite-flying can be serious business.

It can also be serious science!

Thoughts on Design

It's certainly easier to sit back and enjoy the kite masters on the beach than to fly your own, but if you've got ideas about design, structural engineering, or aerodynamics, a kite offers instant gratification and a high-flying step up from what you can test with a paper airplane!

A Kite-Studded History

Ben Franklin, Alexander Graham Bell, and the Wright Brothers all used kites as central vehicles for testing ideas, and it is thanks to the kite of 10-year-old Homan Walsh that construction of the bridge over Niagra Falls was started in 1847.

From exploring ways to alter the design of a kite to examining the forces that operate on a kite during flight, kites offer a variety of angles for creative science projects. The range of established kite designs, including familiar models like diamond, delta wing, and box, offer immediate room for adaptation and exploration. Which shape flies higher? What material works best for the struts that form the frame of support? What ratio of length to width is most effective? What material for the kite itself works best. (Franklin's kite was silk to help keep it up in the inclement weather that he needed for his testing.)

Room to Experiment

You can make a simple sled kite from a sheet of paper. But what happens if you take that same concept and make it from cotton? From silk? From nylon?

Thinking beyond the core construction, you can ask questions about the tail of the kite. How does the flight change if there is no tail or if there are two tails? What impact does the length of the tail have? What length of strength works best? How is the length of string related to the launch of the kite?

As you experiment with kites, you'll find yourself experiencing firsthand the forces that operate upon an airborne kite: lift, weight, tension and drag.

And, of course, you need to deal with and think about wind. What kind of kite flies best in low winds? What modifications can you make to a basic kite to help address changes in wind speed or to facilitate flight in low wind?

There's a lot of room for exploration! These projects can help get you started on a school or Saturday project:

• Let's Go Fly a Kite! (Science Buddies' Difficulty Level: 2) This introductory project is perfect for younger students but also offers a good overview of kite dynamics for all ages and raises some important variables that can be explored in more advanced projects.
• The Wright Stuff: Using Kites to Study Aerodynamics (Science Buddies' Difficulty Level: 5-6)
  This project explores the affect of changing the bridle point—the spot where the string meets the frame. What happens to the angle of flight when the bridle point is altered?
  
• How Low Can It Go? Design a Kite that Flies Best in Low Winds (Science Buddies' Difficulty Level: 5-8)
  This project involves testing three different kite styles to evaluate performance in low winds using an anemometer.
  

Have you conducted a kite-based study? We'd love to hear about your trials and your results!

What to Do When a Project Goes Wrong

Science fair season may be winding down at most schools, but scientific exploration at home and in the classroom continues year-round. And where there is science, there are variables and materials and controls and reactions and things that change and bond and grow ... and things that don't.

Lots of things can go wrong with a project, even with a well-designed, well-scheduled, and conscientiously-run project.

Learning to handle a project that doesn't turn out exactly as expected and either regroup and get it back on track if there is time or deal with the unexpected results if the due date is too close for a repeat set of trials is important for students who are running scientific experiments of all sizes. It can be very frustrating when things go wrong. It can also be confusing, especially when you thought that you had done everything "right."

So what went wrong?

And what can you do about it?

What to Do Next

Our Staff Scientists have pooled their thoughts on troubleshooting a science project that doesn't work to help you step back, evaluate what happened, and figure out what you should do next.

1. Are You Sure it Didn't Work?
   It is important to first stop and ask yourself "How do I know my project 'failed'?"

   
   "Maybe the problem is obvious," says Sandra, "like when you're putting together a circuit, and the light bulb at the other end fails to turn on. Or maybe you're re-creating a classic experiment like Gallileo's fabled Leaning Tower of Pisa Experiment, and you know what the proven hypothesis is," so you know it should have worked.

   It gets trickier when you are working on an experiment of your own design. The question you have to ask yourself, says Sandra, is "did my project 'fail,' or was my hypothesis just incorrect?"

   While student scientists can be disheartened if their initial educated guess turns out wrong, "proving a hypothesis wrong isn't bad science," reminds Sandra. For a student continuing research on the same topic, a failed hypothesis provides the groundwork for conducting further experiments to figure out why the initial guess was wrong.

   
   

2. Before You Dive Back In...

   It can be tempting to jump right back in, change things, add something here, remove something there. But the best approach is to step back and take some time to think through what happened before you begin troubleshooting—and before you repeat your experiment.

   Our team all agrees it is important to take a deep breath and think about the project and the problem before you do anything hasty:

   
   Kristin: "Ask yourself what you expected to see happen (what was the output that you anticipated) and what you saw happen."

   
   Dave: "Be calm. Many procedures do not work flawlessly (or at all) the first time."

   Michelle: "If a project doesn't work right away, don't start changing things willy nilly. Leave the project alone for a few hours and let your mind work things out."
   

   
   

3. Review the Science Behind the Project

   Doing some additional research, and re-reading any background materials that accompanied the project or procedures, can be an important step in troubleshooting. As Kristin explains, you want "to make sure that you understand the 'science' behind the experiment and what you expected to happen" so that you can effectively evaluate your results and analyze the procedures you used before trying again.

   
   

4. Back to the Source

   Re-read the full set of directions or the steps of the Experimental Procedure. Why? You may have overlooked a step that made all the difference between success and failure.

   "As you read each step," says Sandra, "go back through your lab notebook and your memory and ask yourself: 'Did I do it exactly this way, or did I change this step in some way?'"

   Any changes you made, or steps you forgot, are good bets for where things went wrong!

   As you read through the project again, you'll want to pay special attention to the following:

   
   
   • The Materials

     One of the first things to doublecheck is the list of materials and supplies to ensure you used exactly what the project specified. Why? The wrong material could dramatically alter the outcome of an experiment. Similarly, if you knowingly made a substitution, even if you thought it would work, the changed material may have caused an unexpected result.

     Kristin suggests that you not only look again at the materials list yourself, but enlist a friend, parent, or teacher to carefully go through the materials list (and procedure) with you. "There may be times when you misinterpret how to do something or miss a detail about a brand, size, or setup," she says.

     Having an extra set of eyes look over the documentation with you can be really helpful.

     
     

   • Evaluate Your Variables
     Once you've reviewed the overall steps of your experiment, look carefully at your variables. Why? If you didn't treat your variables as outlined in the procedure, your results could certainly differ from the expected outcome. Maybe you misread something. Or, maybe you tried to take a shortcut?

     You want to ask yourself two important questions, says Kristin: "What are my inputs (what am I changing)?" and "Did I change them as directed?"
     
     

     
     Focus on Controls
     

     As you review your experimental procedure, you want to identify both the positive and the negative controls, if they exist.

     A positive control is a condition that should work regardless of your hypothesis. Positive controls are included to make sure that the experimental procedure is capable of giving you a positive result.

     A negative control is a condition where the experiment will not work regardless of your hypothesis. Negative controls are included to make sure that the experiment is capable of giving a negative result.

     
     How do they fit together?

     An example of the way positive and negative controls might operate or appear in a project can help you identify the controls in your own project.

     Sample project: If you were doing an experiment where you used glucose strips to measure the amount of glucose (sugar) in different solutions, your positive control (the one you know should give you a clear positive signal) would be a solution of sugar water that you made yourself. The negative control (the one you know should not give you a signal) would be plain tap water because water doesn't contain glucose.

     A problem uncovered: If the glucose strips failed to show a clear reading for the sugar water, or showed a reading for the plain water, you would know that the glucose strips were not working properly and that none of your experimental results were trustworthy—because your controls had failed.

     
     
     

   • Evaluate Your Controls

     A project that has built-in "controls" or "checkpoints" gives you clear points throughout the project where you can stop and evaluate your work or progress to make sure everything is right "at that point." Going back and looking at your results and progress at each control or checkpoint is an important step in figuring out what went wrong.

     If the experimental procedure identifies the controls, you want to ask yourself: "Did a control fail?" It is possible you can you use the controls to pinpoint which step went wrong.

     
     

   • When There are No Controls

     Not all projects use controls. Sandra suggests that if you are working on a project that doesn't use controls, you may want to determine places where they can be added before you run your test again.

     "Remember that it could be either a procedural step which is wrong, or some piece of equipment or material which is malfunctioning," says Sandra. "So you'll want controls which test as many of those things as possible."

     Projects that involve building something may not yield traditional controls, so it's helpful to think about inserting "checkpoints" or steps where you could do or observe something that will indicate if everything is working "so far." For example, if you are working on building a complicated circuit, taking a reading with a multimeter at a certain point can indicate whether or not you are on the right track.

     
     

   • The Procedure

     Carefully re-reading the procedure, step by step and line by line, is a critical aspect in troubleshooting a project. These tips from our scientists can help as you review:

     
     
     • Kristin: Pay close attention to any "notes" or images in the procedure that give clues about what you might observe, how the setup should look, or how you should conduct your testing.

     • David: If there is a device that you have made, double-check any diagrams provided to make sure you assembled it correctly.
       
     
     

5. Talk it Over

   Talking over a "failed" project with a teacher or other adult can often be a good idea either before or after you work through the troubleshooting steps above. Sometimes, when you put things into words out loud, you'll hear the problem differently than when you are thinking it through on your own or on paper.

   "Science doesn't happen in a vacuum," reminds Sandra. "Scientists talk to each other, and their collective experiences (or sometimes just the act of saying it all out loud) can spark the critical 'ah-ha' moment of understanding what went wrong or what needs to happen."

Moving Forward

In the end, not all experiments will "work." If you're following someone else's Experimental Procedure (like a Science Buddies Project Idea), then you can probably feel confident that the project should work. Hopefully, careful troubleshooting using the guidelines and suggestions above will help you find the weak spot in the experiment you performed so that you can correct any problems and try again. But if your experiment was of your own design, it's possible it simply won't work as you've envisioned it this time around.

Troubleshooting can help you find what may be flaws in your design, and a review of the science behind the project and your ultimate goal for the project can help you shape and refine the procedure for subsequent trials and testing.

Don't lose heart.

Our scientists are quick to point out that not all science experiments "work" the first time.

"If your experiment 'failed,' consider yourself in good company," says Sandra. "The idea for many Nobel Prize-worthy science explorations started with someone scratching his or her head over a 'failed' experiment."

"Remember that negative results are real and important science, too," adds Kristin.

It's a good perspective to keep in mind. In fact, a "failed" experiment can be a stepping stone, says Sandra. "Understanding why an experiment failed can often lead you to a much more interesting, and unexpected, discovery."

Michelle agrees. "It is okay to fail. Remember what Thomas Edison said: 'Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.' It took Edison many, many tries to find the right filament for the light bulb. Just keep working, and you will be able to figure things out."

Related Blog Posts:

• Giving Yourself the Best Chance for Success


• Putting Things in Perspective: Honest Science

Marc Church, Mechanical Engineer, Lockheed Martin

Marc Church, Senior Mechanical Engineer at Lockheed Martin, has always been a "builder" at heart. At age nine, he dreamed of being an architect and drew house plans for fun. A few years later, a retired railroad engineer moved in next door, and Marc's focus switched from architecture to engineering as he perused plans of railroad bridges and received mentoring from his neighbor.

Marc went on to study mechanical engineering at Louisiana State University. Then during the summer of his junior year, he interned with Lockheed Martin. As an intern, he worked on several projects, including the Space Shuttle External Fuel Tank and X-33, an early prototype of single-stage-to-orbit reusable launch vehicles (SSTO RLVs). At the end of the summer, Marc transferred to the University of New Orleans so that he could work part-time at Lockheed Martin.

A Career in Mechanical Engineering: Not too Hot; Not too Cold

Today, Marc has been working in the field for 11 years. Day to day, he works on thermal analysis of spacecraft components. "I have to make sure that parts of the spacecraft don't get too hot or too cold and that they fully function and do what they are supposed to do," explains Marc.

This kind of testing and analysis involves using computer design programs to build digital thermal analysis models of actual components. These models are then tested under a variety of simulated conditions. For example, a component that might be on the outside of a system could be affected by air friction during liftoff of the rocket into space, which would cause it to heat up. Alternately, spacecraft components also have to perform reliably in the extreme cold of space during orbit.

Orion's first flights will be to the space station. Image courtesy of Lockheed Martin.

Additional information:

• Orion Overview


• How Orion fits into NASA's Constellation Program


• Video of upcoming April 2010 Orion Pad Abort Flight Test


• Space Shuttle External Tank


• Photo of X-33 (1/2 Scale demonstrator) and Venture Star (Full Scale)


• Lockheed Martin

Science Buddies Science and Engineering Career Resources:

• Mechanical engineer


• Aerospace Engineer


• Aerospace Engineering and Operations Technician


• Mechanical Engineering Technician


• Browse all careers in science profiles
  

Science Buddies Project Ideas:

• Mechanical Engineering


• Civil Engineering


• Materials Science

Strategically thinking through issues that might arise, Marc designs and runs his tests. "It's kind of like playing with Lego blocks," says Marc. "I'll build different components and integrate the parts into a model representation of the spacecraft. Then, I'll run through simulations with the spacecraft in different orientations."

Currently, Marc is working on Orion, a vehicle he describes as "the eventual replacement to the space shuttle that will take us back to the Moon and Mars and wherever else we want to go." Testing a new spacecraft can involve hundreds of simulations. According to Marc, it took 700 simulations just to be sure Orion won't get too hot or too cold when put into orbit. Design plans for the Orion met NASA requirements in August 2009, so Marc and his team are working on refinements to reduce the weight and increase the performance of the spacecraft, thus reducing the cost associated with the Orion's eventual flight and launch.

Once this wave of design optimizations is in place, the team will begin building and testing physical components (versus simulations and models) and Marc's job will shift from desk-based computer analysis to hands-on design and testing of production models.

Always Something New

For Marc, working at Lockheed Martin as a mechanical engineer requires a balance of math, physics, and structural engineering. It's a combination Marc enjoys. "I like designing something new and being creative," he says. "I like the challenge of the cutting-edge technology I'm working on."

Marc is also proud that his work for Lockheed Martin is on "projects that are for the betterment of the United States. It's American-made for the American people."

Marc didn't grow up to design houses as he'd imagined as a boy, but he stayed pretty close to his early ambitions. At age nine, when he did a science fair project titled "Why Do Tall Buildings Sway in the Wind?," he was simulating the impact of high-level winds and looking to see what changes in design would allow a building to "bend" rather than "break."

Little did he know then that he would grow up to perform similar testing and creative analysis in the design and development of spacecraft!

Ask Marc a Question

Questions about engineering? Questions about thermal testing? Curious about spacecraft of tomorrow?

Do you have questions for Marc? Marc has agreed to answer questions from students, teachers, and parents related to his career, including his work for Lockheed Martin, the space-related projects on which he has worked, and thermal testing.

Update: March answered all of the questions submitted. You can find his answers here.

We'll pass along a selection of questions to Marc and post his answers here on the blog! This is a great opportunity for students to get an inside look at the world of mechanical engineering.

On April 12, we'll do a random drawing from everyone that submits a question and send out six 2010 The Year In Space calendars, courtesy of The Year in Space, to winning participants. Note: US only.

Botanical print by Anna Atkins, courtesy of The New York Public Library, www.nypl.org

These days of mid-March as Spring approaches have been unusually sunny here in the Bay Area. Short sleeves. Sunglasses. Sunscreen. The quest for a bit of shade.

The rain and fog may be just around the corner, but a sunny afternoon is a great time to explore the colorful composition of light, the filtering properties of various colors, and a light-activated chemical reaction--all while making cool photographic prints without the use of a camera.

The process of "sun printing" involves using special light-sensitive paper. You place an object on the page to "block" the sunlight. After a few minutes, you remove the object and rinse the paper. The negative space (which had been exposed directly to sunlight) will show up blue. (It's not just any blue, either. It's Prussian Blue, or ferric ferrocyanide, a permanent shade of blue dye created as a result of a chemical reaction between sunlight and the special paper.) In sharp contrast to the appearance of the blue, the positive space will show up in white, x-ray style in appearance. How bright the image is depends on what you use to block the light and what color you use to block the light.

What you end up with is a photogram, a photograph created through the use of paper and light. In 1843, Anna Atkins released portions of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, the first book illustrated with photographs. Atkins' botanical images, like the one shown above, were all created as cyanotype photograms.

The great thing about sun printing is that is offers a wonderful chemistry demonstration for a wide range of ages. Even the youngest of students can enjoy the "craft" of sun printing and learn a bit about the science behind the print they take home. Couple sun printing with a nature walk, and students can print leaves or flower petals. Older students can explore the effectiveness of various colors as filters, evaluate the importance of ultraviolet light in this printing process, or try one of the other variations noted in the project idea:

• Colorful Chemistry Creations: Make Your Own Sun Print with Color and Sunlight! (Science Buddies Difficulty Level: 3-5)

For classes and families, this project can be a lot of fun. Plus, it combines art and science!

I love puzzles of all sorts. Word puzzles. Number puzzles. Mazes. Codes. Brain teasers.

Not surprisingly, I passed on my willingness to tinker with a pencil and paper in an attempt to solve this or that challenge to my kids. Years ago, we spent countless hours poring over the pages of I Spy, Where's Waldo, and various spin-offs on the "can you find it hidden on this page" concept. In addition to the regular I Spy titles, the Can You See What I See? books by Walter Wick (one of the best-known photographers for the I Spy series) are wonderful and beautifully photographed.

I Spy-type books have recently made a huge comeback in my house, and the reality is that some are harder than others. We love Pokemon, but with kids ages 6 and 9, the seek-and-find Pokemon series ended up being too easy. It was fun to find our favorite characters, but it didn't take long to spot all the targets and whiz right on through an entire book (and then bemoan the cost of a hardback book that is so quickly "done"). Where's Waldo, by comparison, tends to be much more difficult and time-consuming.

What makes one seek-and-find harder than the next?

You probably can make some educated guesses about what's going on and how seek-and-finds can be configured for a variety of age ranges and difficulty levels. Scientifically speaking, much of the "challenge factor" can be boiled down to the degree of interference presented in the picture or photograph.

Brain on a Quest

As you look for the target item, you are doing a visual search, sorting and sifting through and weeding out the things that are "not right" as you seek the exact match for your target. How many things are "not right," and what they look like, what color they are, and how close they appear to each other and to the target all contribute to the difficulty of a seek-and-find.

For example, in the following three illustrations, the "orange upright 5" is quite easy to spot in the first image. It's a bit more difficult in the second image. In the third image, the number of distracters has increased and the distracters are the same color as the target. Both of these factors add to the challenge involved in quickly locating the target.

A Range of Variables

Which feature of the distracter is more important? Is it the color? Or the shape (and the similarity to the shape of the target)? Is it the number of distracters?

Curious?

If you love a good puzzle, you might enjoy putting these questions to the test with the Science Buddies The Brains Behind 'Where's Waldo?' project idea. Using an online application, you can set up your own basic "seek-and-find" pages and put test them with a set of volunteers.

Once you understand the science behind what is going on, the sky's the limit in terms of what real-world simulations you might set up and photograph. You might just have your own line of seek-and-find titles lurking inside you!

A "lost" science fair project report arrived at Science Buddies today. The project was apparently found loose in the US mail system somewhere in the postal routing process. Surprisingly, the person that found it didn't simply toss it in the recycling but looked closely enough at the report to realize it is a student's work and that the student was working on a Science Buddies project idea.

The report was forwarded to us here at Science Buddies.

The report is based on the Science Buddies Measuring the Speed of Light with a Microwave Oven project idea and was written by Simon Hong for Mrs. Reed. (The mail was sent to us by a postal department in Miami, FL.)

If you know Simon or Mrs. Reed, can you let us know?

We know the immediate and visible devastation earthquakes can cause, and last month, after the earthquake in Haiti, we posted a set of projects that offer good background material and talking points for discussion of earthquakes and plate tectonics. What students may not realize is that the impact of a big shake does more than cause structural damage.

In fact, an earthquake can alter the tilt of the Earth to such a degree that the length of time in a "day" changes. The change is very small—we are talking seconds broken into millions—so small that our timekeeping methods of hours and days isn't effected. It is still fascinating to realize, however, that earthquakes can alter the tilt of the planet and that the amount of seconds in a day is not absolute.

Science Daily reported this week that research suggests that the February 27, 8.8 earthquake in Chili may have shifted the Earth's axis and shortened the day. With a projected change in axis of "2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters, or 3 inches)," scientists have determined that the earthquake may have "shortened the length of an Earth day by about 1.26 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second)."

The following project ideas can help students talk about and visualize the importance of the degree of "tilt" of the Earth by examining the change of "seasons" on Earth:

• The Reasons for the Seasons (Science Buddies difficulty level: 4-5)
• A Matter of Degrees: How Does the Tilt of Earth's Axis Affect the Seasons? (Science Buddies difficulty level: 7-8)

Have you ever noticed how many kinds and brands and flavors of lip balm appear in the cosmetics department at your favorite store? Why are there so many variations? Which one do you like most? Why do you like it? What kinds of differences do you notice between types?

It might surprise you to discover that lip balm is something you can make at home. In fact, just like mixing up a batch of cookies, making lip balm follows a basic recipe. And, just as there are many recipes for cookies and many ways to alter the basic "formula" for making cookies, there are many ways you can alter and customize the "formula" (or "recipe") for making your own lip balm.

What's On the Inside

A look at the ingredients list on the side of your favorite tube of lip balm might show a number of ingredients. "What" goes into each formula and "how much" of each ingredient is used changes the consistency, scent, flavor, creaminess, and emollience.

The ingredients list on the lip balm I have in front of me reads this way:

Beeswax, coconut oil, sunflower oil, tocopheryl acetate & tocopherol (vitamin E), lanolin, peppermint oil, comfrey root extract, rosemary extract.

This is a lip balm manufactured by a well-known company that creates "natural" lotions, soaps, and balms, and yet I see in this list the basic ingredients of any lip balm... an oil and a wax.

This company has come up with its own combination of ingredients and made choices about which oil and which wax to use in its custom blend of balm. I like the choices the company has made. You might like something creamier. Or you might prefer something without a mint. Or, you might find that you like lip balms best that use a different wax or a different oil. Each ingredient contributes to the way the balm feels, tastes, spreads, and lasts.

Kitchen Chemistry

Do you know what emulsifiers are? Do you know what an emollient is? Maybe not. But when you mix up your own lip balm, these concepts come into play. Making lip balm can be fun and practical, but it's also chemistry.

In the Potions and Lotions: Lessons in Cosmetic Chemistry Science Buddies science project, you can try a few basic recipes for lip balm and then do some product testing with a group of friends or volunteers to see which ones are most popular. Or you might evaluate which blend lasts longest or spreads most easily.

After you try a few basic recipes, you can experiment with other ingredients, change percentages, or combinations of ingredients, and expand your research to come up with your very own blend of lip balm—your perfect formula.

If your lip balms are a hit, you might also consider making your own lotions or even your own perfumes. These two project ideas can help get you started on a fun science fair project or on your own line of lotions and balms to give away or to sell!

• Potions and Lotions: Lessons in Cosmetic Chemistry (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 5-8)
• Scintillating Scents: The Science of Making Perfume (Science Buddies' difficulty level: 6)
  

Note: This month's "Scientist's Pick" is from Science Buddies' staff scientist, Kristin Strong. Kristin presented this project to the Science Buddies' team in February. It's got an icy, winter theme! ~ Science Buddies' Editorial Staff

Project: No Pain, Lots of Game
Scientist: Kristin Strong
Science Buddies' Difficulty Level: 4

My favorite project of recent ones I've worked on is the Science Buddies project, No Pain, Lots of Game, a project that looks at the relationship between video gaming and pain management.

Personal Connection

This project grew out of personal experience with my oldest daughter. When she was five years old, we discovered that she had a birth defect requiring chest and abdominal surgery. During her hospital stay, her pain was managed primarily with morphine, but during painful procedures, the surgeon advised us to put on a movie and to get her engaged in that before starting the procedure. During her months of recovery at home, my daughter would often wake up in pain, and again I used a combination of medication and videos to help her get through the night.

In 2008, when Science Buddies opened up a new interest area section on computer and video games, I wondered if any research was being done on using computer or video games to manage pain. I learned that indeed, throughout the country, studies are being done to see if video games and virtual reality games like Snow World can help alleviate pain in patients suffering from burns. Burn units were chosen for these studies because burns are some of the most painful kinds of injuries that people must endure, sometimes requiring months of daily wound care. I decided to try and write a science fair project for students that would parallel this real-world research.

Putting It All Together

An "ice bath" was used to create a painful circumstance for volunteers. We were then able to test to see if playing a video game helped reduce awareness of pain (or increase the ability to withstand and block pain).

The question that we're trying to answer with this video game science fair project is: Can video games be included in the repertoire of pain management strategies?

To try and answer this question, I decided to use an "ice bath" as a way to create pain without causing lasting injury. To test the project, brave volunteers were seated in a chair and asked to put the front part of one foot in the ice water, a situation that is uncomfortable and "painful." We asked each volunteer to leave his or her foot in as long as possible, and we measured and recorded the amount of time.

To test our theory about video games, we then had each volunteer play a video or computer game for 5 min, and, while the volunteer continued to play the game, the other forefoot was submerged in ice water for as long as the volunteer could stand that.
The data was then analyzed to see if the video games made a difference in how long the volunteers were able to endure the ice bath.

Real-World Results

I like this project because it can be done with things that many families have on hand, like ice, bowls, a stopwatch or way to count seconds, and computer or video games. In just a few minutes, you can set up an experiment that parallels research being done at big universities and medical schools. I think students will find it interesting to discover that there is great individual variation in sensitivity to pain—and in the ability of games to reduce or "dial down" pain.

Plus, there's a lot of room to extend and customize this project. One variation to the main project is to test various types of games to see if the "kind" of game or media source alters the outcome. Is Donkey Kong better than Dragon Warrior for helping block pain? Is TV just as good as a video game?

With an ice water bath and some brave volunteers, kids can find out.

~Kristin

For similar project ideas, explore the Video & Computer Games interest area, sponsored by AMD, in the Science Buddies Project Directory.