Fantastic Forces: This was the first presentation we saw on our field trip. The presenter was demonstrating a lot of friction and force experiments. The first thing she did was put a glass with no water on top of a table cloth and she then quickly pulled the cloth out from under the glass. She then put water in the glass and it made it more difficult. Then she put a plate on top of the glass and then a plate, and then repeated the last action and pulled the cloth out from under. It looked really difficult but she did it. She then shot a pencil through a rather thick piece of plywood using a long tube, and pressure from a fire extinguisher. Lastly she demonstrated how the Newtons Cradle worked. The Newtons Cradle is a set of five large balls. When one pick up one of the end balls, and let it go, it will cause the opposite side ball go up. Its a good example of how force works.
Bob Sled Activity: We did an activity which involved the students to make a little plastic bob sled. You can use any cloth and batteries to help with weight. It was a good demonstration to how friction works. If you use too many batteries then it will be too heavy and wont go too fast. If you use none, then it will also go slow. It also depended on the type of cloth you used on the bottom. You want the smoothest possible for the greatest speed.
Lightning Show: The class also saw an amazing lightning show. It was really fascinating to see how the man can make music using static and bolts. Two boys also came up and the man used electric magnets to put the two handles together, and the two boys could not split the metal apart. He played a lot of music, like the star wars theme song using the lightning bolts. He used different metals and shaped to make higher or lower pitched shocks. It was really cool and I recommend that show to everyone.
Archimedean Excogitation Audiokinetic Sculpture: This was a really cool sculpture we saw on the trip. It was a repeated trail that a ball would follow the way down all the obstacles and then the crane would bring the ball back to the start. There was a lot of moving parts involved and it was flawless. It did the same thing every time with no mistakes. The ball would go down a Ferris wheel and then go on another trail and do all sorts of stuff. I could only imagine how long it took to make that sculpture.
This field trip was really fun and I feel like I learned a lot and i really recommend this field trip to any science class, because the museum has a section for everything.
