Science project help

[Deep]

I know its cheeky to ask for help with homework at my age lol but here goes.

I need to help my 9 year old with a practical science model or experiment that he can take to school or take a picture/video of to show at school.

He's fascinated by planes so I've been thinking of some kind of experiment/model that shows how a plane achieves lift or perhaps even just a plane wing in a wind tunnel (?with smoke?) to show how air moving creates lift.

However I've no idea how to practically build such a thing or if its even possible for an amateur with limited diy skills.

Any suggestions with this would be appreciated. However any alternative suggestions would also be helpful, it can be anything to do with any branch of science.

Cheers.

[glazbagun]

Hair dryer, coke (or whatever is more cylindrical) bottle and a wing on a couple of sticks to steady it?

Turn the hairdryer on and the wing will lift. Turn it upside down and the wing becomes a spoiler.

Of course then you need to make the thing!

[glazbagun]

There's also a lot of videoes on how to make a stirling engine out of a cooke can and a bean can, but explaining why a Stirling engine works might be a bit much for a 9 year old and they might suspect some outside input.

Rubbish one->

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgHXK5kk5dQ

Better one->
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9cK_TMLvjI

[anonymous-user]

I like the idea of a wind tunnel!

use a 2L coke bottle with the ends cut off for the walls (so it's see through) use a hair dryer on cold for the fan. Make sure you've got a nice long length of straight tube (drain pipe or similar bit of plumbing?) upstream of the clear section, ideally with a flow straightener grid (perhaps some large open cell foam or cardboard expanded mesh)
Put a cardboard cross section 'wing' in the tunnel. Use something like a drinking straw to introduce smoke (from a vaping device) at various heights across the tunnel!

Would be a pretty cool project ;-)

[Eric Mc]

You could make a simple balsa wood glider with adjustable ailerons and elevators to show how the different angles of each control surface affect the way in which the aircraft flies.

I remember building a simple balsa "Chuck Glider" when I was about 12 which worked on those principles.

Something along these lines -

[w1bbles]

My son (aged 10 at the time) bought loads of different types of AA batteries and we rigged up crude lightbulb test rigs with a clock in the background and time lapse photos on the phone. Dead easy and made the presentation fun at school. He plotted the results on a graph - which light bulb finally extinguished when. Teacher seemed to like it!

[Beati Dogu]

When I was about 6, I remember boiling some water in an empty oil can, then taking it off the heat and screwing the lid on. As the steam cools & condenses inside, the atmospheric pressure crushes the can in. Nice, dramatic stuff.

As seen here with an oil drum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0TQxYemrgg


I was supervised of course and I remember the can collapsing in stages, rather than going all at once. I didn't use a hose pipe though.

Not sure you can still can metal oil cans these days, but I'm sure a substitute can be found.

[V8LM]

Egg in a bottle is always a good one - https://www.stevespanglerscience.com/lab/experimen... - needs matches and fire though.

Or Mentos and Coke rockets - messy.

'Frying' an egg alcohol is also impressive, but again not really appropriate for age 9.

Hair dryer and ping pong ball is simple. Difficult to explain though.

Edited by V8LM on Tuesday 20th June 20:33

[grumbledoak]

Deep said:

He's fascinated by planes so I've been thinking of some kind of experiment/model that shows how a plane achieves lift or perhaps even just a plane wing in a wind tunnel (?with smoke?) to show how air moving creates lift.

As said, you could probably do it with a balsa wing in a chopped up coke bottle with a fan.

If you are looking to demo Bernoulli's principle you might be in for a bit of a disappointment, though it would be educational.
http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aero/airflylvl3.htm

[TonyRPH]

Beati Dogu said:

When I was about 6, I remember boiling some water in an empty oil can, then taking it off the heat and screwing the lid on. As the steam cools & condenses inside, the atmospheric pressure crushes the can in. Nice, dramatic stuff.

As seen here with an oil drum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0TQxYemrgg


I was supervised of course and I remember the can collapsing in stages, rather than going all at once. I didn't use a hose pipe though.

Not sure you can still can metal oil cans these days, but I'm sure a substitute can be found.

That's awesome! - I remember our science teacher doing this back in school (70's) with a 5L oil tin.