Gaby S. wrote:Hello! My name is Gaby Schleining and I am in the eighth grade. I have decided to do an advanced science project based on the "Tiling with Spidrons" project at
http://www.sciencebuddies.com/mentoring ... ?from=Home
My goal is to create as many polyhedra as possible with spidrons, but use the number of spidrons as parameters, i.e. how many different polyhedra can I create with 7 spidrons? with 8? with 9? with 15? etc. and describe a mathematical function that could give the number of polyhedra that can be made with
x spidrons, if such a function exists. How can this project be devised as a fair test? What are the variables? How do I devise the hypothesis? Is this project an actual experiment where you define the variables, and test your hypothesis, and analyze the data, if this project has
any data? I am really confused, and I am not sure if my science teacher will accept this project as an experimental project or if I need to rethink my entire topic. I really want to do this project because I feel that I can be creative with this one, and I definitely do not want to change projects. I am afraid that my teacher will tell me to do so if this is not something that can be tested. Any advice will be valuable. Thank you very much!
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
Hello, Gaby!
You have posed a series of difficult questions. I feel a bit out of my league in responding, but I think I can offer some general guidance.
First of all, BRAVO to you for considering this challenging project. I read through the project and the web sites that are referenced there, and spidrons seem like a fascinating topic for scientific investigation.
Second, one of the characteristics of a good experiment is that it be bounded. I don't know enough about spidrons to state this with certainty, but my gut feeling is that the number of polyhedra would be very large. If I'm right, that would make the project you described unbounded - having so many potential solutions that you effectively won't ever finish. Part of my hesitancy here is that I'm not sure how you would effectively build the polyhedra. It seems like a very challenging project to undertake, perhaps too challenging for an 8th-grade science experiment.
(Other experts feel free to disagree with me here! I don't want to unnecessarily discourage Gaby in this project!)
I think a resonable alternative to the project you proposed would be to do something like build one polyhedran with 6 spidrons, one with 7, and so on, and compare their properties. How are they similar? How are they different? How does their "stackable" nature change - see the reference material about consuming space and creating building blocks?
Also, the Science Buddies site suggests some interesting investigative options that you might consider.
I think this project has the potential to be something you can build on in the future, with more and more complex investigations as you advance in your studies.
I do hope that you found this helpful.