Solar powered fan hat

[deleted-319192]

My son is making a solar powered hat fan for a science project. We've watched videos on how to make it so I get that part, but I'm stumped on the hypothesis and variable part of it. Any advice?

[deleted-279800]

Hi kmh4956,

A solar-powered hat fan sounds like fun! What is your son hoping to learn or understand by building the hat fan? Is he experimenting with different ways to build the hat, or is he experimenting with how the hat works after it is built?

You and your son can read about forming a hypothesis here:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ml#keyinfo

The next step is to design an experiment that will test your hypothesis and that includes the proper variables:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... bles.shtml

I hope that helps. Good luck, and let us know if you have any additional questions.

[deleted-325743]

Great idea maybe you could do your experiment on how different types of light affect how fast the hat spins under different types of light ( LED, florescent, and sunlight) and your hypothesis would be your sons opinion on which would be the most efficient.

[bfinio]

Hi kmh4956,

I would add that your son should check if his fair allows engineering design projects instead of scientific method projects. Engineering projects are different because you design/build a project to meet some need (in this case, a solar-powered fan hat to keep someone cool) but you don't have a hypothesis/variable like you would in a scientific method project.

We have a page comparing the two processes:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/engineer ... thod.shtml

and a detailed page about the engineering design process:

https://www.sciencebuddies.org/engineer ... ignprocess