Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Eighth Grade Science Projects (Page 18)

How Far Can Sparks Jump?

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Piezoelectric barbecue fire starters work by creating a spark that ignites the volatile lighter fluid, which then starts the charcoal burning. They are low current, high voltage devices. How high does the voltage have to get to make a spark in air? This project shows you a way to find out by with an inexpensive experimental setup to measure the distance that the spark can travel between two spherical electrodes. Read more

Picture This: How Visualizing Data Can Lead to the Right (or Wrong) Conclusion

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Big data is one of the most promising and hyped trends in technology and business today. Big data refers to data-analysis jobs that are too large and complex to be analyzed by applications that are traditionally used. Big data sets hold valuable information. Many publicly available data sets have the potential to improve our everyday lives by giving us insight into the things we care about. How well-equipped are we to extract information from the data? Visualizations and aggregations (or… Read more

Design Clothing with Built-In Sensors

Science Fair Project Idea

Engineering Design Process

Have you ever worn a costume that lit up or played sound? Have you ever wished you had a suit of armor with built-in moving parts like a superhero? What if you could make your costume or suit react to your own movements or even other people who bump into you? The Science Buddies activity Weaving a Wearable Touch Sensor shows you how to make a capacitive sensor that responds to touch and can be woven directly into fabric (Figure 1). Can you design a piece of clothing that includes one… Read more

Showing the Airflow in a Wind Tunnel

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

A technique often used in wind tunnels is to introduce smoke in front of the airfoil that is being tested. The smoke comes from regularly-spaced point sources, and the wind flow in the tunnel spreads it out into parallel lines, called streamlines. The streamlines make it possible to visualize the airflow over the airfoil. When the lines continue smoothly over and past the airflow, they show that the flow remains laminar, and that the airfoil is creating very little drag. When the… Read more

Follow the Bouncing Ball: A Web Animation Project

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

This project is a fun way to try your hand at programming. You'll learn how to create some simple animations, and you'll perform tests and make measurements to help you create more realistic-looking animations. All you need to get started is a Web browser and a text editor (like Notepad). Read more

Measuring Vibrational Frequency with Light

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Strike a key on the piano, and you hear the string vibrating. Just about any object vibrates when it's knocked, but how much and how fast? What properties of the material affect the way it vibrates? This project helps you find out. You'll build a simple light-sensing circuit for measuring the frequency of vibrating springs. Read more

Pinwheel Magic: Take a Spin with Animation

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Do you enjoy watching cartoons and animated movies? Do you have fun playing video games? What do all of these things have in common? Fantastic computer animation, that's what! It's a cool job to take an interesting story or game and make it more entertaining by animating it. In this computer science project, you won't animate a full-length feature movie, but you will animate a pinwheel—a project that can go a long way toward creating your own longer animations! You will create an animated… Read more

Smart Medicine Cabinet: Build a Sensor That Reminds Patients When to Take Medication

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Have you ever had to take prescription medicine to get over an illness? To get better, it is important to take the medication in the proper manner and at the proper time. Wouldn't it be cool if there were a tool or piece of automated equipment that held your medicine and reminded you to take it? A tool that would know when you picked up the bottle and took your medicine? Building a smart medicine cabinet is what this science project is all about! Read more

How Does the Ratio of Sand to Cement Affect the Strength of Concrete?

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

Sorry, you don't get to use a jackhammer for this project, but you'll find out another way to break concrete (not to mention what makes it strongest). Read more

Materials for Sound Barriers

Science Fair Project Idea

Scientific Method

What are the best materials to use for blocking out unwanted noise from the environment? You can build a test box (or test frame) around an audio speaker. Use a sound level meter to measure the speaker output. Use different materials to cover the walls of your test box (or frame), and see which materials do the best job at blocking the sound. For a more advanced project, perform your tests using different sound frequencies. Are some materials better at blocking certain frequencies than… Read more

Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, Eighth Grade Science Projects (213 results)

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