Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I am trying to find a way to make firefighters see through smoke.I already have ideas for my project but I would gladly appreciate more ideas.
I also need some help about how I could test my ideas or yours.

Thanks,
darthxav

First off, your project idea sounds really great. What ideas did you have? That will give us a good place to start.

Deardarthxav,

There are several thermal imaging cameras that help firefighters see through the smoke. You could test different ones through the thickness of the smoke and maybe this can help you come up with much improved version of the camera. Iam interested to see what are your ideas to start your project.
Take care,
Jay

Jay is right. Just be sure that you are safe when testing with the smoke. You don't want to set off any fire alarms or harm any scientific instruments you are using. Some are sensitive to smoke and may malfunction. Is wha Jay suggested like anything you had in mind?

-McKenna

dear mpduzac,
my ideas were infrared, radar, and ultrasound

dear jmehta14
I think you have a good idea, I'm thinking about ultrasound. radar too.

dear mpduzac
I was thinking i could try something like that.

Those are some really good ideas. Do you have access to this equipment for testing? Something you need to consider is how you will test these ideas. That will get a little complicated. Before you do any testing, you may want to answer these questions for each idea:

How practical would this be for firefighters to use?
Hoe would firefighters use this? (handheld, part of mask, etc)
Would the heat or smoke from the fire damage the instrument?
What could be some things that could go wrong?
Which instrument do you hypothesize will produce the best results? Why?
Is anything similar to this being used currently?

This is called your background research. Your fair judges like to see a little section on your board with information like this. The purpose of this is to give you information to go off of for your research. It is also to make sure you have not just jumped in and started experimenting, but have put thought in to your project. The background research gets more important with the higher science fair levels that you get to. Once your background research is done, you can narrow down and refine your experiment procedures.