Physics Science Projects (92 results)
Physics is the study of matter — what is it made of? How does it behave? What laws or equations describe it?
From subatomic particles, to the Big Bang, modern physicists study matter at a tremendous range of scales. There's a whole lot of interesting physics at the human scale, too.
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In this engineering challenge, you will build a car powered by nothing but a rubber band. The farther the car goes, and the fewer materials you use to build it, the higher your score. Enter your score in the 2024 Science Buddies Engineering Challenge for a chance to win prizes! Teachers, lesson plan versions of this challenge are also available.
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Do you think you could build a car powered by nothing but air? A balloon-powered car is pushed forward by air escaping from a balloon, and it is fun and easy to build with materials you already have around your house. Can you imagine how you would want your own balloon-powered car to look? Can you design a car that will travel as far as possible? You can even measure your car's speed using your smartphone and a special sensor app. Get ready to grab some simple supplies to bring your idea to…
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Have you ever noticed that on a hot day, it's more comfortable to wear a light-colored shirt than a dark one? Or that it's cooler in a park than walking down a street? This happens because different surfaces absorb and reflect heat in different ways. Urban heat islands are parts of cities where man-made surfaces like pavement and buildings replace natural surfaces like grass and trees. In this project, you will use temperature and satellite data to see if certain areas in a city have higher…
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How can you make a train without wheels? By using magnets! In this project you will build a magnetic levitation ("maglev" for short) train that floats above a magnetic track. How much weight can you add to the train before it sinks down and touches the track?
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Try your hand at this engineering challenge. Can you build a "launcher" device to launch a ball as far as possible and a "receiver" to catch it? Building a receiver provides an extra twist to a traditional catapult project. Add to the challenge by using a limited set of materials to build your machine and calculate a score based on your throw distance and materials used.
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In this engineering challenge, you will use limited materials to build a paper tower as tall as possible, but there's a twist! Your tower must also support a heavy weight at the top without collapsing. Looking for inspiration? You can see how other students have tackled this and other annual Science Buddies Engineering Challenges.
Teachers, lesson plan versions of this challenge are also available.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) programs can now generate photorealistic pictures of people who do not exist in the real world. How can you tell if a picture is of a real person or a fake, AI-generated person? What features of the picture do people use to decide whether the face is real or AI-generated? In this project, you will explore these questions as you ask volunteers to look at both real and AI-generated pictures of human faces.
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In this engineering challenge, you will build a ball run from paper and tape, but there's a twist! You want to make your ball run as slow as possible. How long can you make it take for the ball to get from the entrance to the exit? You can see how other students have tackled this and other annual Science Buddies Engineering Challenges.
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This is a really fun project even if you don't like going on roller coasters yourself. You'll build a roller coaster track for marbles using foam pipe insulation and masking tape, and see how much of an initial drop is required to get the marble to "loop the loop." It's a great way to learn about how stored energy (potential energy) is converted into the energy of motion (kinetic energy).
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Astronomers can figure out what distant stars are made of (in other words, their atomic composition) by measuring what type of light is emitted by the star. In this science project, you can do something similar by observing the color of flames when various chemicals are burned.
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What can you do with magnets and ball bearings that makes a lot of noise? Why, build a magnetic linear accelerator, called a Gauss rifle, of course! Now, this magnetic accelerator is not a weapon, but a way for you to learn a lot more about physics concepts, like momentum. In this physics science project, you will investigate how far a ball bearing launched by a Gauss rifle will fly, depending on how many magnetic acceleration stages are in the setup and the ball bearing's initial velocity.…
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If you'd like to investigate the physics of amusement park rides, then this project is for you. You'll build a roller coaster track for marbles using foam pipe insulation and masking tape, and see how much the marble's potential energy at the beginning of the track is converted to kinetic energy at various points along the track.
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