Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

I have come up with a project that involves constructing a kaleidoscope and investigating its history and the mathematics of symmetry. I will also make models of kaleidoscopes on Sketchpad.

Is this project advanced enough for a high school science fair? Do you think it will produce good results? Is it original enough?

Hi prosperous,

Your project sounds advanced enough. Please see #43 in: Mathematics research project ideas suitable for high school and college students: http://www.math.sunysb.edu/~tony/und_res_projects.html

Also please see #15 in Mathematics Faire Ideas http://www.geocities.com/mathfair2002/stands/ideas.htm

Thanks.

The above sites were generated by inputting "kaleidoscope and investigating its history and the mathematics of symmetry" to answers.com You might look at the other hits to see if they're useful. You can also change the wording to see if there are more hits.

Re good results: you'll need to run the experiment.

Re originality: take a look at what's been done before, and see if you're doing anything new. Sketchpad sounds new.

prosperous wrote:I have come up with a project that involves constructing a kaleidoscope and investigating its history and the mathematics of symmetry. I will also make models of kaleidoscopes on Sketchpad.

Is this project advanced enough for a high school science fair? Do you think it will produce good results? Is it original enough?

Hi, prosperous!

I agree with Mr. Kallman that your idea for a science fair project sounds advanced enough.

The best projects I've seen come up with a question to answer. I looked at the Wikipedia site for kaleidoscopes(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaleidoscope). It said that they are constructed from a tube of mirrors that contains loose, colored objects. That construction description got me thinking about what I could vary in the way a kaleidoscope was made that might change the view an observer gets. Some things to consider are:

What happens when the mirror angles are changed?

What happens when the size or color of the loose objects are changed?

You could use your research to predict what will happen when something about the kaleidoscope changes and then build a few to prove it. If you can demonstrate a difference and explain why, I think it would be a really cool project!