Have you ever seen a tall sailboat and wondered how they don't flip over when it's windy? Try this project and learn about the physics behind how sailboats stay upright.
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Look around you. What types of objects do you see in the room? Furniture, lights, a computer, a fan, pencils, books, etc.? Where did they come from? Odds are you did not build them yourself. You or your parents probably bought them at a store. Before that, they were built in a factory somewhere. And even before that, they were probably designed by engineers. You might think of engineers when you think of complex machines like rockets or huge structures like bridges, but engineers also design…
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Eardrums are membranes inside your ears that vibrate when sound waves hit them. These vibrations are converted into electrical signals and sent to your brain, which allows you to hear sound. The frequency response of your eardrum, or the range of frequencies that will cause it to vibrate, determines your hearing range. Typical human hearing ranges from about 20 Hz up to 20,000 Hz, although the ability to hear high frequencies typically degrades as you get older. Some other animals can…
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Water striders (also called water bugs, pond skippers, etc.) are insects that can hop around on the surface of water (Figure 1). Unlike boats or other floating objects that are partially submerged and held up by the resulting buoyant force, water striders are held up by surface tension.
Figure 1. Water striders (image credit Isaka Yoji).
You can build your own water striders using thin wire (Figure 2). Do some background research about surface tension, and experiment with how…
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Try your hand at this engineering challenge. Can you build a "launcher" device to launch a ball as far as possible and a "receiver" to catch it? Building a receiver provides an extra twist to a traditional catapult project. Add to the challenge by using a limited set of materials to build your machine and calculate a score based on your throw distance and materials used.
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How many websites do you have accounts with that store personal information like your name, email, phone number, or mailing address? If the people running these websites are not careful, hackers could gain unauthorized access to, and even change or delete, your information. They can do this using something called SQL injection, which involves entering malicious code into text fields on a website. In this project you will learn how SQL injection works and figure out how to prevent it.
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Cyber_p008
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Time Required
Short (2-5 days)
Prerequisites
Previous experience with programming (any language). To do this project you will need to learn some basic SQL and PHP.
Many websites ask you to answer "security questions," like "What is your mother's maiden name?," to recover your account if you ever forget your password or login ID. However, sometimes the answers to those questions are easy to find online. Does this pose a risk to the security of important accounts like email and online banking? Are people even aware that this information about them is available online? In this project, you will investigate how secure people think security questions are, and…
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When you hear the word "encryption," you might think about modern computers and things like email and online bank accounts. But did you know that encryption has been around for thousands of years? In this project you will learn about the Caesar cipher, a simple type of encryption that replaces each letter of the alphabet with another letter, and demonstrate how a modern computer can crack this ancient code in just a few seconds.
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Cyber_p005
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Time Required
Short (2-5 days)
Prerequisites
Experience with Python or another programming language of your choice.
You might think that one sure-fire way to keep your computer safe from hackers is to disconnect it from the internet entirely. But did you know that even without internet, a computer can transmit data using light, sound, vibrations, or even heat? In this project, you will investigate how a spy or hacker can steal data from an "air-gapped" computer that has no internet connection. You can even use Google's app to demonstrate how the data can be picked up by a nearby smartphone.
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Math_p049
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Time Required
Average (6-10 days)
Prerequisites
None
Material Availability
Desktop or laptop computer required. See materials list for details.
Cost
Very Low (under $20)
Safety
Some methods proposed in this project can cause your computer to overheat if you are not careful. This may damage your computer. See the procedure for details.
Wondering what sustainable, high-producing agriculture might look like? This science project explores how analyzing bird's-eye-view pictures of a field can make farmers aware of variations in their fields. Farmers can use this information to optimize their farming practices, or even feed this information to high-tech agricultural equipment so the machines can automatically adjust their actions (like fertilizing or watering) to the needs of a piece of land.
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EnvSci_p065
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Time Required
Short (2-5 days)
Prerequisites
Familiarity with image-editing software, or willingness to learn it.
