<p>I saw the long thread not too long ago about the value of school projects and wanted to vent. My junior d was assigned to build an amusement park ride out of household materials for her ap physics class. This was assigned Monday, and it’s due Thursday. She just told me tonight as I was dropping her off at her dance class. She is not a procrastinator (she did not get this trait from me!) and had she known about this before, she would have not waited until the last minute. </p>
<p>I want to scream!!! She takes these assignments very seriously and will be up late tonight trying to come up with an idea. She will probably put hours into this project between tonight and tomorrow night. She gets a lot of other homework normally, so this is just adding to her stress. We have so much holiday related stuff to do this week…I just can’t believe how inconsiderate some teachers are. (And I am a teacher.) </p>
<p>I would love to call this teacher, but of course I won’t. I’ll just vent…</p>
<p>That’s a pretty strange physics project. You don’t really need to do any math and the concepts are pretty basic.</p>
<p>Strange.</p>
<p>Here’s an idea. Go to a hobby store and get some magnets that come in torus shapes (flat doughnuts). Go to a hardware store and get doweling that will fit in the holes. but leaves space between the magnets and the dowel. Buy a plastic figurine. OK. Now. </p>
<p>Take some of these magnets and wire them together. Wire the figurine to the magnets. Stack another set of magnets on the floor. Put the dowel through the magnets. Place the wired magnets with the figurine at the top of the dowel in reverse polarity to the magnets at the bottom. Drop the figurine and the magnets. The figurine will slow down and eventually hover over the magnets at the bottom.</p>
<p>Voila! You’ve just designed the “Tower of Fear.”</p>
<p>My son had to design a contraption that would protect a raw egg from breaking when dropped from the top of a building (for example, a school). But he is not in AP Physics. “An amusement park ride from household materials” gives me a headache just thinking about it. And such cultural bias too! What are YOU supposed to have lying around the house? </p>
<p>Problem with my kid’s class was that only the school custodian was allowed on the roof, and many of the inventions were directional in nature but he was just hurling them off the roof!</p>
<p>Do you have any lazy susan’s at home? (90% of a merrygoround - stick on a couple of toy figures)</p>
<p>Do you have any old baby strollers left in the house… voila!</p>
<p>Stop thinking about rollercoasters!! I know everyone is trying to figure out how to make a rollercoaster out of matchsticks.</p>
<p>Our kids have had to build musical instruments for Physics (out of household materials) but it was never a 3-day project–more like 3 weeks. Unreasonable, esp. this time of year.</p>
<p>Idea–if you have an old wheel, from a stroller or wagon, make one of those rides that demonstrates centripetal (centrifugal? I never could keep them straight) force, pushing the standing riders against the wall as the floor drops away. Tho the floor dropping part might be difficult.</p>
<p>Actually could be a fun project, given enough time to experiment a little. :)</p>
<p>I don’t think the magnet Tower of Fear will work–most household materials do not include these magnets. </p>
<p>BTW, I hate these type of assignments, but they are assigned to by kids’ teachers too. I would appreciate our teachers saying that our kids should use household materials. These projects usually involve my going to a craft store and dropping $20-40 (never less than $20). One year my son had a creative teacher and I had to make runs every other week for some prop/project etc. I did not mind, but some of the requests were inconvenient. One involved renting a hard to find video to answer questions. The teacher only had one copy and loaned it to a kid out of school for illness. The nearest copy was 30 minutes away in a public library. It was a pain to hunt down, and I lost my patience.</p>
<p>Well, my house if full of the things ;-). Seriously.</p>
<p>mommusic: If you’re struggling to explain what you mean, I think I can help. Kids used to be taught that there was such a thing as “centrifugal force.” There isn’t. The force one feels is the effect of inertia when a body is accelerated centripitally.</p>
<p>I’m sure you could have lived without knowing that.</p>
<p>Oy Vey. Your daughter (and you) have my sympathies. I cannot TELL you how many hours of sleep have been lost over these types of projects in our house!!! Or how many “household items” I’ve made a midnight run to Wal-Mart to obtain. :eek:</p>
<p>Pinhole box. LED flashlight. Laser Pointer. White light from maglite flashlight, zeon bulb, halogen tube. etc. </p>
<p>Objective: Demostrate the components of light by diffraction through a pinhole (point source). Can use perhaps a prism, angled glass, shaped ice.</p>
<p>tarhunt–right. Centrifugal force is the one (NOW they tell us) that isn’t a force at all; it’s the tendancy of an object to stay in a straight line. Centripetal is the “pushing” or “pulling” force that’s causing the action. And that’s really as far as my knowledge goes!</p>
<p>How about a marble run type ride? From paper towel tubes & maybe a micro-mini car for the wee riders?</p>
<p>Thanks so MUCH for all the replies! D and DH were working on some swinging ship ride when I went to bed, and I don’t know the outcome. I’m printing this thread out and leaving it for them to ponder. I think the project has to show gravitational or centripetal force (centrifugal?). Looking over this thread I’m wondering if something so simple as the paper towel tube lined with foil and a figurine would qualify? I’ve been on plenty of rides where you sit on a burlap bag and slide down a surface–no mechanical contraption needed!</p>
<p>It was VERY thoughtful of all of you to help. </p>
<p>And NEmom, I once had to go to a Border’s store several towns away to buy an obscure video needed for a class “question and answer packet”! That video became a hot commodity…the phone was ringing off the hook from friends who wanted to borrow it!</p>
<p>chocolate–well, you didn’t specify the force that had to be demonstrated! Gravity is a pretty simple concept already understood by all! (And this is AP Physics. )</p>
<p>Slight misinterpretation! When we read, "build an amusement park ride out of household materials " many of us think that means use whatever you can find around the house. Wrong! It means go to Home Depot and buy $75 worth of pipes and screws and wires and junk, and then make another stop on the way home at the drugstore for some more “household materials”</p>
<p>My hs soph is currently taking an art sculpture class…they have to do 8 different variations on a fruit…1 per week…I have driven him to crafts stores, grocery stores, Wal-Mart for the different items … he chose a pineapple…he has wired marshmallows, he has hot glued 3 different types of pretzels, he has melted and dyed wax (yellow for the inside, brown for the outside and green for the leaves) … today he left for school and forgot to take the “subtractive” pineapple, he made it out of a block of foam and he cut away from it until he had a pineapple…so his ride had to turn around and come back to claim it…
now I am trying to figure out how to use them as the centerpiece for my holiday dining table!! “We” do NOT need this on our to-do list right now… but, I cannot deny he is learning some great things and his parents are really enjoying seeing a latent art skill blossom!! Of course, I am using the kitchen counter for my last minute sewing projects and he wants it for art!! My DH wants to see the counter used for dinner preparation! LOL… </p>
<p>These projects can make for great memories…provided we can maintain our sense of humor…to me, that is actually the most important ingredient for any project. Unfortunately, my children often leave that in their lockers!!</p>
<p>This morning when I dropped my HS D off at school, I noticed that the kid in the car in front of us was carrying a project that looked remarkably like a roller coaster. Hmm. . . do you think physics teachers across America had the same idea for the week before winter break?</p>
<p>Update: teacher reduced the requirements for the project, no doubt after someone complained! (and no, it wasn’t me!) DD came home Wednesday and said she just needed to build something that looked like an amusement park ride and be able to explain the physics behind it. She made a roller coaster out of popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners with several loops in it on her own. Forget the hours she and dh spent the night before trying to make something else, and forget all the anxiety this needless assignment caused–she was done in less than an hour. She had time for the rest of her homework and was able to go to her dance class. We passed the high school on the way to dance and I asked her why the parking lot was so full. Turns out there was a concert going on, and I would venture to guess that factored into the reduced assignment. </p>
<p>Thanks for listening, for trying to help, and for the humor!</p>
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