Thursday, November 10, 2011

School Projects - Part 2


Nathan had to build a Rube Goldberg type device for school. It had to use 3 of 4 types of energy (heat, light, sound, motion) to accomplish a task. At first I thought he just had to design and draw one - then I realized we actually had to make something work. Once again we ended up with a rather simple design that met all the requirements. [See post re: Ellen's physics boat]

Without Evan's mammoth speakers I doubt we could have produced a big enough sound wave to move that pinewood derby car off the starting block-even with the car only about 20 millimeters from the bass driver. Evan just happened to have an audiophile sampler of the William Tell Overture WITH real cannons. You never know when you might need that particular item.

My ears are still ringing. It took several tries to get it to work - even with something this simple. All with the volume turned WAY up. I'm surprised the authorities didn't show up.

And I just noticed... How appropriate that somewhere during the filming the screen saver on the TV reverted to the Starship Enterprise. Isn't that your TV wallpaper? Wait, what are you saying? You don't have a computer hanging from the back of your television to watch Hulu and stream iTunes? I'm shocked and embarrassed for you. It's the only way I know of to force you to use 4 remote controls, a keyboard, and a windows network login just to watch last weeks episode of Dancing with the Stars.

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