August 2011 Archives

Legotron camera, by photographer Cary Norton. Image used with permission, courtesy of Cary Norton.

Photographers with an engineering streak are always looking for creative ways get an image from an unexpected source. Sometimes invention starts with a big (and heavy) box! Other times, innovation comes in a smaller format, the challenge for a reduced (or upcycled) footprint being part of the novelty and the fun. Turning empty mint tins into pinhole cameras, for example, is an irresistible DIY project for some — and one that can turn out surprisingly good, and characteristically dreamy, pinhole-style photos!

When it comes to point and click, the intersection between art, design, form, functionality, and quality provides a framework for thinking both outside the box and "about" the box, and starting with unexpected materials — or "kid" materials — can yield exciting results and new perspective. An unexpected LEGO camera built by professional photographer Cary Norton has garnered an overwhelming thumbs up recently for its novel construction. He constructed the housing for his Legotron 4x5, a working, large-format, manually-focusable camera out of the classic, colorful building bricks.

If you've ever made a basic square house or "parking garage" from LEGO bricks, you've got the basic shape, but Norton's camera housing slides in and out to focus and integrates a 127mm ƒ4.7 lens. The Legotron took many months to create, from initial idea to the working model. Norton has posted technical specs on the process and implementation on his blog, and the sample photos are impressive!

Making Connections

Reading Norton's blog notes suggests many possible ways you might branch out and further his exploration of LEGO camera modeling to create your own fully-functioning camera. As you consider what's possible, the following science projects can help you learn more about camera construction:

• Point, Click, Shoot! Photography with a Pinhole Camera
• Digital Pinhole Camera

• Pinholes, Light and Aperture Size

Our Summer Science Fellows recently turned the camera on themselves and had a great time shooting videos related to two of our Project Ideas. Here's a recap from Maddy:

"In July, the six Science Buddies Summer Fellows met and discussed ways that social media could be used to connect more students, teachers, and families to Science Buddies resources. After considering the various ways individuals use online media, we agreed that a fun and engaging approach to getting the audience interested in, and excited about, Science Buddies Project Ideas would be to create YouTube videos demonstrating cool Project Ideas ourselves.

We hope these videos will become a series of YouTube vignettes. For our first two installations, we decided to demonstrate the following projects:

Forensic Science: Building Your Own Tool for Identifying DNA: a clever Do-it-Yourself biotechnology project
Getting a Bang Out of Breath Spray: Studying the Chemistry and Physics of a Small Explosion: an explosive physics and chemistry project

The videos, posted on the Science Buddies YouTube channel, reflect the diverse personalities, interests, and talents of the Summer Fellows, and we hope that they highlight and spread our enthusiasm for Science Buddies and science education."

It looks like the Summer Science Fellows had a great time, and we hope you enjoy the videos! We're looking forward to seeing more! The two projects demonstrated in their first two videos can be found here:

• Getting a Bang Out of Breath Spray: Studying the Chemistry and Physics of a Small Explosion

• Forensic Science: Building Your Own Tool for Identifying DNA
  

Farnsworth invented the TV and landed on a U.S. postal in stamp in 1983. In later years, Farnsworth's widow, Pem, reportedly explained Farnsworth's relationship to the history of TV this way: ''You take Farnsworth's patents out of your TV and you'd have a radio."

Philo Farnsworth?

A household name? Maybe not.

But if you have a TV in your house, you are using something Farnsworth envisioned as a high school student and spent many years developing. Farnsworth is often referred to as the "inventor" of TV, and his story is fascinating and exciting in terms of what's possible when a young scientist or engineer takes what is available and imagines what may be possible. Farnsworth's early fascination with electricity and his spirit of "what if" is what brought moving images to the screen, but his ideas got their genesis in something much more basic... the lines created when plowing a field.

A biography of Farnsworth posted on the Brigham Young High School website summarizes his vision at age 14 this way: "he dreamed of using a lens to direct light into a glass camera tube, where it could be analyzed in a magnetically deflected beam of electrons, dissected and transmitted one line at a time in a continuous stream." By the age of 21, Farnsworth demonstrated this method of transmission, with a single line, thus creating the first television transmission.

What will you and your students invent, test, question, or discover this year?

Continued Study

Farnsworth's story is one that puts the Engineering Design Process in action. Students with an interest in electronics, tinkering and the DIY mentality of inventing, or students who see a problem and have ideas on how something could be developed to solve that problem, can learn more about the steps of the engineering process in the Science Buddies Engineering Design Process guide.

The following books and reference materials may help you learn more about Farnsworth and the development and historical timeline of TV:

• The Boy Who Invented TV: The Story of Philo Farnsworth (Book)


• The Teen Who Invented Television: Philo T. Farnsworth and His Awesome Invention (Genius at Work! Great Inventor Biographies) (Book)


• Philo Taylor Farnsworth (Brigham Young High School)


• Philo Farnsworth (the Wikipedia entry may serve as a launch point for further research)

It's hard to believe that a year ago I wasn't yet wise to the squawking, oinking, glass-shattering, wood-breaking, and highly addictive cacophony of Angry Birds. Slingshot a little bird through the air to knock down a structure that seems like a house-of-cards rendition of the Three Little Pigs? When it comes right down to it, that's exactly what you've got... a modernized and mobilized twist on the tried and true fairy tale story of the pigs who each tried a different building material to try and safeguard their house. In the Angry Birds twist on the classic, the pigs have stolen the eggs from the birds and are hiding in structures made of glass (ice?), stone, and wood. There is no big bad wolf in this version, but there are a bunch of attitude-laden and cleverly-endowed birds standing in line for a chance to be hurled into the pig-built structures. Each type of bird has a certain skill or special ability. Some have extra mass. Some have explosive personalities. Some can accelerate to hurdle with increased force into the target structure. But even a big blue boomerang bird is only as effective as the finger doing the tapping. And the little blue birds that split into three and rain down, doing damage especially to glass—those, too, require an understanding of starting angle and knowing "when" to tap to create a perfect and effective split.

When you strip away all the squawking, you've got a game of angles and trajectories, mass and velocity, geometry and physics.

Seeing with Fresh Eyes

I'm probably not the only parent who has justified a few extra rounds of Angry Birds with the half-formed thought that there's science involved in even subconsciously calculating the appropriate angle and pullback strength for launching the next bird. Determining the moment to release the special effect only adds to the scientific fun. And when you're left with just one or two pigs to target, precision becomes the name of the game.

In my house, we take turns playing the angles, and we've beaten every new set of levels as they came down the pipe, racking up golden eggs and pineapples and stars, but I have to admit, not once did we really analyze or question the gravity of the gamescape. At the same time, we have mastered the gravity. We know how to approximate our angles based on the gameplay, based on what we have learned will happen in the space, in the world of Angry Birds. We have internalized the parameters of the gameplay, even if we didn't stop to realize that those parameters are entirely fictional, that they don't map to the same gravitational forces of Earth. Pull out a rubber band, tuck a small toy in place, and fling it through your living room, and it immediately becomes clear that there's something different about the way these attitude-laden birds fly.

Making it Real

As it turns out, Angry Birds offers an interesting platform on which to base discussions of physics and laws of motion. As reported by Wired in response to an article in eSchool News, physics teachers are flocking to the game as a way to hook students by turning something fun, familiar, and "cool" into something that can transform textbook principles into hands-on (or fingers-on) learning.

According to the eSchool News article, teachers like John Burk, a physics teacher in Atlanta, GA, are working with students to "figure out" the laws that govern the gamescape of Angry Birds. What are the laws of physics that dominate this world? How does the gravity in Angry Birds, for instance, differ from our own? Why does it differ? How would the game change if the gravity was similar to our own? These are all questions that can be asked—and are being asked in innovative classrooms where student interests can be leveraged and ricocheted and catapulted into something spectacularly fun and educational—all in the name of science.

Making Connections

For students interested in the science behind the angles, there are a number of Science Buddies Project Ideas that offer additional testing ground, background material, and suggestions for experimentation with principles of angle, trajectory, velocity, and energy. These projects may be exciting on their own or might be used as an overlay onto a novel investigation into the physics of popular gaming worlds. With projects from physics, aerodynamics, mechanical engineering, and even sports science, there are many related "angles" and paths to explore. Here are a few to get you started:

• Make Monkeys Fly in the Blink of an Eye
• Going the Distance: Launch Angles & Projectile Trajectory
• Effect of Trebuchet Arm Length or Counterweight Mass on Projectile Distance
• Bombs Away! A Ping Pong Catapult
• Paintball Ballistics

Screenshot from the Row to the Pole website for Day Thirteen of their multi-week row to the magnetic North Pole.

The "Day Thirteen" update on the Row to the Pole website reads: "The crew fight against turbulence during a 20 hour row..."

When the part-sledge, part-boat vessel pushed off on less than two weeks ago from Resolute Bay in Canada, four hundred and fifty miles of ice-riddled water stood between the six-man crew of the Old Pulteney Row to the Pole expedition and the magnetic North Pole. If successful, the journey, which will take between four and six weeks of rigorous, sometimes almost round-the-clock, rowing, will be the first time the magnetic marker is reached by boat, an eye-opening testament to the melting that has occurred in the ice cap.

The Spirit of Adventure

For Jock Wishart, a seasoned explorer and leader of the Old Pulteney Row to the Pole expedition, the challenge of "getting there by boat" after finishing his second trip to the North Pole was just too tempting—and possible today in a way it would not have been a decade ago.

In 1988, Wishart circumnavigated the globe by boat, traveling seventy four days on the Cable and Wireless Adventurer and breaking the previous world record for circumnavigation in a powered vessel by more than seven days. (Wishart's record has since been beaten.) In 1996, Wishart co-founded of the 1996 'The Ultimate Challenge' and subsequently organized the biennial land-based Polar Race. He's no stranger to arctic terrain, and he embraced the idea of navigating massive ice formations and racing against the coming freeze to reach the magnetic pole by boat. Reveling in the challenge of a new spin on his past arctic expeditions, the Old Pulteney Row to the Pole expedition was born.

According to Wishart, the changes in the ice—and in available water in which to row—is dramatic, which makes the Row to the Pole quest possible. The change in quantity of free and accessible water where once there was solid ice also makes the expedition one with an environmental undertow. According to Wishart, the trip will shine another light on climate change, one from there in the middle of water that was once ice surrounding entry to the North Pole, a location at one time considered ice-locked.

An Extreme Trip

A 'row' of this magnitude and in these conditions is one full of possible pitfalls and unforeseen challenges. During early stages of the journey, the crew is logging fourteen or more hours a day in the boat—and consuming a reported 5,000-7,000 calories a day to keep up with the demands of the trip. While the crew spends most of the day on the boat and on the water, they have pulled ashore to stretch out and make camp, a night's sleep interrupted at least once by polar bears.

The crew recently posted to their blog that they are mid-way through the trip, having logged more than two hundred and thirty miles and reaching Penny Straits, a section of the trip predicted to be particularly tricky in terms of navigating dense ice—and potential bottleneck. The logged entry, however, notes that the passage was less of a challenge than expected, only 30% ice coverage, a density dramatically lower than the ice reports they'd reviewed.

Making Connections

The challenge of the expedition, in and of itself, may fuel the small crew through the weeks of rowing—along with many, many pounds of dehydrated food packs. For the onboard BBS photographer who plans to make a documentary of the expedition, the soul of the journey may lie in recording and capturing the day-to-day moments of row—the challenges, victories, team dynamics, and rigors of the journey.

The six-man crew also includes an oceanographer who is collecting data and samples throughout the journey, information that will be helpful for future studies and research into climate change and may help scientists better understand the shape of the ongoing changes in polar regions. The multi-week journey offers an amazing opportunity to gather firsthand information related to climate change and environmental and geo sciences.

Students interested in following the expedition and cheering from cozy and warmer sidelines can still get hands-on with some of the science surrounding the voyage.

• Polar Puzzle: Will Ice Melting at the North or South Poles Cause Sea Levels to Rise?: The increased free water (versus ice) enabling the Row to the Pole is directly related to the melting of the ice caps. In this ocean sciences project, students can explore the relationship between climate change and sea levels.
• Making It Shipshape: Hull Design and Hydrodynamics: The design of the boat being used in the Row to the Pole expedition is critical to its potential success and involved collaboration between a boat designer and a sledge expert. Students curious about hydrodynamics can explore the relationship between boat design and drag in this project.
• Geomagnetism*: The Row to the Pole is specifically heading to the "magnetic" North Pole. Students curious about the distinction between the magnetic North Pole and the geographic "North Pole" can explore geomagnetism and devise an independent project using the questions in this Abbreviated Project Idea as a starting point. ( For those curious, the pole position, charted in 1966, maps to these coordinates: 78°35.7N 104°11.9W / 78.595°N 104.1983°W.)

Further Research

For additional coverage of the Old Pulteney Row to the Pole expedition, check the following sources and articles:

• Row to the Pole (official expedition website)
• Paddling to the pole: First rowboat heads to Arctic (CNN)
• Explorers begin attempt to row to North Pole (The Telegraph)

Born on August 5, 1930: Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon.

The story of Neil Armstrong's historic Apollo 11 mission captivates and inspires many young moon watchers. With the right science projects, they can turn their enthusiasm into an exciting hands-on astronomy project! Image: Wikipedia.

In 1966, Armstrong was part of the NASA Gemini 8 mission. Gemini 8 was his first spaceflight, followed in 1969 by the historical Apollo 11 moon landing mission, during which he and Buzz Aldrin explored the surface of the moon.

Making Connections

Armstrong's career didn't start out in space or even with sights set on the moon, but he was in the air as a naval aviator prior to becoming an astronaut in 1962. Students interested in space exploration—or fascinated by all things lunar—may enjoy these hands-on Science Buddies Project Ideas:

• Craters and Meteorites: This project allows students of all ages to explore the relationship between the size of a meteorite and the resulting crater. The difference in "crater" size when you drop a marble and an orange, for example, is pretty dramatic!
• HAMing It Up with the Astronauts*: Students with a passion for space, or those interested in amateur radio, may love the challenge of making radio contact with the International Space Station (ISS). For those looking skyward, making informal contact can be an adventure with its own version of a pirate's treasure map--finding the X that marks the spot for a chance communication is part of the fun!
• Lunar Crater Counting*: By analyzing historical photos and a lunar atlas, students can explore the topography of the moon from afar, learning more about the craters that dimple the surface of the moon and making hypotheses about the formation of those craters.
• Astronomer: Students can learn more about the astronomer career path, one way to focus on the skies and what is and might be out there!

For a sweet mental boost, a pack of freeze-dried space ice cream might be a justifiable mid-experiment snack! (Actually... students might find a project in that, too!)

Professional Development Webinar for Teachers
Join us for a free webinar on September 14
Space is limited!
Reserve your webinar seat now!

Science Buddies is offering a free online webinar on September 14, 2011, from 3:30-4:30 p.m. PDT (6:30-7:30 p.m. EDT). We will provide a comprehensive, guided tour of the Science Buddies website and will highlight ways in which you can use Science Buddies resources and Project Ideas with your students. We will also introduce a new set of video and computer game design resources, developed with support from the AMD Foundation, for classroom instruction and student exploration at home.

All attendees who answer a brief survey at the end of the webinar will be entered into a drawing to win one of three external hard-drives (Mac or PC) donated by Western Digital.

The video and computer games guided portion of the webinar is sponsored by AMD Changing the Game, an initiative of the AMD Foundation, which is designed to spark students' interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) learning by creating video games. We would also like to acknowledge Citrix Sytems, Inc. for providing the GoToWebinar software.

Title:   Professional Development Webinar for Teachers
Date:   Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Time:   3:30 - 4:30 p.m. PDT

System Requirements:

•    PC-based attendees:   Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server


•    Macintosh®-based attendees:   Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

Science Buddies is getting a burst of summer energy from a group of top science students

This summer, Science Buddies welcomed its first set of Summer Science Fellows, a group of six entering college freshmen, all of whom competed at the Intel ISEF during their senior year in high school. These six students have been working on projects at Science Buddies in various areas of the organization, ranging from market research and analysis to the testing of Project Ideas in the Science Buddies directory. As a group, they are also working on a collaborative challenge project. The fellows have attended Science Buddies' monthly company meetings as well as special fellows-only meetings and seminars designed to cover skills they will use during their college years and beyond.

If successful, Science Buddies hopes to continue the Summer Science Fellows program in future years, cultivating a growing group of young scientists who spend time with Science Buddies during the transitional summer before college and become a part of Science Buddies' extended family.

Meet the Fellows

The participants in this year's Summer Science Fellows program are an eclectic group of students with diverse interests and wide-ranging areas of science expertise, a good bit of humor, and, in some cases, big appetites! We at Science Buddies have had a wonderful time getting to know these students in recent weeks and wanted to give you a chance to "meet" this inspiring group of science students!

		Blake Marggraff Hometown: Lafayette, CA College: Washington University, St. Louis, MO ISEF Project: "Treatment of Simulated Cancer Cells with Compton Scattering-Produced Secondary Radiation" Favorite Scientist: Marie Curie. "Nothing in life is to be feared—it is only to be understood." Most Important Scientific Discovery/Principle: Ionizing radiation What's on His Ipod: Lots of podcasts: Radiolab, This American Life, Science Friday, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, The Moth, and many more... Hobbies: Scouting, hiking, camping, Tae Kwon Do, Wikipedia
		Damon Kawamoto Hometown: Santa Cruz, CA College: Brown University Planned College Major: Computer Science ISEF Project: "Abundance Estimate of the Sacramento Chinook Salmon through the use of Genetic Data" Favorite Scientist: Mendeleev Most Important Scientific Discovery/Principle: What's on Her Ipod: Pandora—pop, pop-country Go-To Quote: "The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds."—John F. Kennedy Hobbies: Tennis, cooking, robotics On working with Science Buddies: "I think that the most exciting thing about working at Science Buddies is that I'm part of a group of people who are making science accessible and exciting to students and families everywhere. I've always loved creating mini experiments and would spend my weekends building structures and testing hypotheses. I am excited that because of the work that Science Buddies is doing, more students will grow to love science."
		Danielle Nguyen Hometown: Santa Cruz, CA College: McGill University Planned College Major: Biochemistry or microbiology/immunology ISEF Project: "Abundance Estimate of the Sacramento Chinook Salmon through the use of Genetic Data" Favorite Scientist: "Ben Franklin, but not only because he was an ingenious scientist, but because his ingenuity spanned across multiple disciplines. Very impressive!" Most Important Scientific Discovery/Principle: Harnessing electricity (go Ben!) What's on Her Ipod: Some dance music, pop electronica, and movie soundtracks (Inception&mdash';got to love that movie!) Go-To Quote: These are words to motivate me to do otherwise: "It is remarkable, that persons who speculate the most boldly often conform with the most perfect quietude to the external regulations of society"—Nathaniel Hawthorne Hobbies: Flute On working with Science Buddies: "I'm working on kit prototypes right now with the purpose of helping develop ways to increase the accessibility of science to curious young scientists. Knowing the direct applications of my work keeps me excited about the project that I'm doing!"
		Kyra Grantz Hometown: La Selva Beach, CA College: University of Chicago Planned College Major: Currently undecided; considering Chemistry, Classical Languages (with a focus in Latin), Film Studies, Political Sciences, and Mathematics. ISEF Project: "The Effects of Ocean Temperature on Aerosol Particle Absorption" Favorite Scientist: Bill Nye the Science Guy! (I actually don't really have a favorite scientist, but I absolutely loved the Bill Nye videos as a kid.) What's on Her Ipod: Pretty much everything, but always the Rolling Stones, the Shins and movies scores (Morricone, Herrmann, Bernstein) Go-To Quote: "The world is wide, and I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum."—Frances Willard Hobbies: Basketball, swimming, theater production, volunteering at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, watching classic movies On working with Science Buddies: It's definitely hard to pinpoint the one thing I find most exciting when working for Science Buddies in and of itself is so inspiring. If I had to choose, I would say I am most excited about working with my fellow interns on our group assignments.
		Madeline Sides Hometown: Davis, CA College: Stanford University Planned College Major: Bioengineering ISEF Project: Favorite Scientist: Rachel Carson What's on Her Ipod: Classic rock Go-To Quote: "Friendship with oneself is important, because without it one cannot be a true friend to anyone else in the world."—Eleanor Roosevelt Hobbies: Skiing, art, travelling, outdoor activities On working with Science Buddies: "I am excited to be back with Science Buddies. It's a cool organization with nice people and an important mission/product. I look forward to building on my experiences from last summer and exploring other areas of the organization. I also hope to learn more about the workings of businesses and nonprofit organizations."
		Matthew Feddersen Hometown: Lafayette, CA College: University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, IL Planned College Major: ISEF Project: "Treatment of Simulated Cancer Cells with Compton Scattering-Produced Secondary Radiation" Favorite Scientist: Nikolai Tesla Most Important Scientific Discovery/Principle: Transistor What's on His Ipod: Classical, hip hop, soundtracks Hobbies: Karate, frisbee, piano, drums, robotics