Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Hi! I was thinking about doing something similar to the Build a Helping Hand project but my teacher wants us to do something that uses the scientific method as opposed to an engineering project. Any suggestions?

Hello!

I think you could modify the Build a Helping Hand project to incorporate the scientific method. One idea would be to test a few different hand designs to figure out which one works the best. You would first have to define what problem you're trying to solve. In other words, what do you want the hand to be able to do? Then you can brainstorm different materials to build each prosthetic hand out of. Your hypothesis would be which materials you think will work the best at solving your problem. From there you can test your hypothesis and draw your conclusions about which hand design worked the best. You just have to make sure the success of the hand is something you can quantify. For example, if your goal was to design a prosthetic hand that can pick up a pencil, you could test how many tries it takes each hand to pick up the pencil. That will give you some numbers that you could put in a graph.

I hope this helps!