The goal of this ETP is to engage students with a hands-on engineering design challenge. Students will spend time designing, testing, and redesigning small-scale catapults. They will make two catapults: a prototype (what this lesson covers) and a final design (not included in this lesson).
The Gratta group is working on building a detector for neutrino interactions in liquid xenon. This phase of the project involves designing, building and testing a prototype detector as a proof-of-concept.
Students will work in teams to design solar powered vehicles that use common products. Examples of common products the students use for their solar vehicle include wheel assemblies and/or chassis. The purpose of the vehicle is to investigate collisions.
Laser Maze is an activity that will engage students in learning and utilizing the properties of light waves, such as reflection, transmission, and absorbance, as well as highlighting the importance of these properties in research use by having students create mock ‘pump-probe’ experiments.
This exercise encourages students to develop hypotheses, conduct an experiment partially of their own design, and develop methods for data collection and data analysis.
A Solar Array is the main component of a PV system that requires a precise design, and is constructed based on the needs of a PV system. The energy needed to operate, charge or maintain a system is determined by the operational requirements and capacity of the system and Solar Array.
Quantifying the sedimentation velocity (terminal velocity) of a spherical particle in a liquid is of importance because it relates to areas in industry that process and transport suspensions of particles.
Throwing an object across the classroom is an example of a parabolic trajectory. Students will be able to experiment with a tennis ball, with paper and later on, with a constructed mini-rocket.
In this 8th grade physical science laboratory activity about chemical reactions, students are challenged to: 1) create a reaction that would be suitable to deploy a car's airbag; and 2) construct a model of an airbag that will provide enough cushion to protect a hard-boiled egg.