Aurora L. asked:
Objective
To find out how a submarine uses a propeller and a stabilizing fin for forward movement.
Introduction
Although the submarine you have seen in a movie seems to be gliding along effortlessly, it is actually fighting the forces of gravity, pressure, friction and buoyancy. Have you ever encountered these terms in previous science fair experiments? Among all other science fair experiments, this is one of the best, as you will understand how these forces are overcome by the submarine.
Materials
A 500ml water bottle, a soda bottle (2 liter), knife, scissors, 2 large paperclips, needle-nose pliers, chopsticks, 3 rubber bands, stiff ruler, a silicone sealant, a bathtub or pool
Preparation
The Propeller
This is one of those science fair experiments in which you will need the assistance of an adult.
Cut a soda bottle (2 liter) in half. Take the bottom for making a propeller with 5 curved separate blades. Two holes are to be drilled in the propeller, in the centre and a little off-centre. Cut a small plastic circle out of the remaining 2-litre soda bottle. Bore a hole at the centre of this circular piece of plastic and the submarine bottle cap. The free end of a straightened paperclip should be passed through the cap of the bottle, the circular plastic and the centered propeller hole. The free end should be bent back and passed through the non-centered hole in such a way as to keep the cap, the plastic piece and the propeller in close contact with each other, but allow the propeller to rotate freely.
The Submarine
Drill two holes at the bottom of a 500 ml water bottle similar to the propeller holes. Now feed the straightened end of a paperclip from the inside of the bottle through the central hole. Bend the free tip and pass it in the non-centered hole. Secure the paperclip in such a way that it will not turn. This part is very tricky, so use a chopstick. Attach a rubber band between both the paperclip hooks. The rubber band must be tightly stretched between the hook at the bottle’s base and the hook on the cap. Attach the ruler perpendicular to the water bottle body in the centre with the help of two rubber bands in the form of an “X”. The ruler is your stabilizing fin. Now use a waterproof sealant to close all the paperclip holes in the bottle.
Your submarine is now ready.
Testing your Submarine
Fill three-quarters of the submarine bottle with water and put the cap on. Turn the propeller to build potential energy in the rubber band. Science fair experiments require that you write down all your activities. So count the number of turns and write this number in your lab book. You must turn the propeller that many times in future.
Procedure
Now you will position the stabilizing fin in the front, center and the back in different ways and have some fun observing how your submarine moves. Record your observation each time. Use the below-mentioned ten positions.
No fins- Middle: Fin Centered- Middle: Fin moved to the right - Middle: Fin moved to the left - Front: Fin Centered- Front: Fin moved to the right - Front: Fin moved to the left - Back: Fin Centered- Back: Fin moved to the right - Back: Fin moved to the left -
The observations will allow you to answer the following questions:
What would happen if there was no stabilizing fin? What is the best position for the fin? Why is a stabilizing fin important in a submarine?
If you’re ready to get started with your submarine experiment, your next step is to download a free copy of “Easy Steps to Award-Winning Science Fair Projects” from the link below right now.
Elaine Currie asked:
What’s In A Niche? When talking of niche websites, the answer to that question is, in my humble opinion, not very much at all in most cases. Certainly much less than should be in a niche. Is it just me - are my expectations too high? I don’t think so because I have seen some good niche websites as well as many horrors. A real niche website that has been built with care and passion is a thing of beauty (or, at the very least, interest) and is usually a treasure trove for visitors who share a love of the niche subject.
What I am complaining about are the so-called niche websites people are throwing together for the sole purpose of collecting advertising revenue. These sites have little (if anything) in the way of content. The colourful pictures and plentiful advertisements do not make up for this lack. Advertising is fine, in fact it’s usually essential if you want to stay in business. What makes me see red is clicking on misleading advertisements and landing on website after cloned website only to be confronted with a few sentences of poorly written text and dozens of gibbering advertisements. To test the integrity of a niche site, look at what would be left if you removed all the pay per click advertisements.
It is unfortunate for people who are surfing for information that the Internet is being overrun by the awful flimsy looking template produced websites that are being churned out at a crazy rate. If you spend any time on the Internet, you will know the type of thing I mean. These websites consist of a couple of pages with nice enough looking header graphics (that’s the pictures at the top, if you are not “in the trade” so to speak), and clumps of advertisements placed so that they are the first thing you see. If you manage to get past the advertisements, you might find a few articles which have been copied from other websites just for the sake of having something on the pages to lend them some credibility. These websites don’t exist to provide information or services or to promote anything. Their sole purpose is to carry advertising that will earn the owner money in return for just about zero work on his part.
How much time and effort goes into creating one of these monstrosities? Practically none: in most cases it is all done by a software package. The pseudo webmaster doesn’t ever need to worry about actual webpage design or building. All these charlatans need to do is decide upon their niche topic, toss a bunch of keywords into the mix and the software will do the rest. These people can create their pseudo niche websites on any subject anyone in the world might think of. It’s easy because they don’t need to know anything about the subject themselves. Whether it is dog training, bridal dresses, funerals or haemorrhoids, an online search tool will provide a list of keywords and the software will do the rest. Nobody cares that the laughing man clutching a fistful of cash or the sports car pictured in the heading has no relevance to the content and would be frankly inappropriate if you were looking for a funeral director or medication for a painful medical condition. The webmaster has no intention of offering you anything of value. In fact, it is in his interests if you take an immediate dislike to his web page because that makes you more likely to click away from it via one of his advertising links and that’s how he makes his money.
After a couple of days of trying to do some semi-serious research on the Internet, I feel like unplugging my pc and dusting off my library tickets. Ok - so you can’t judge a book by its cover but the cover doesn’t usually set out to deliberately mislead you as to the contents (quite the opposite in fact). When I type a query into a search engine, I want the results to lead me to websites containing the answer to that query. If I am searching for information about a particular subject, I don’t appreciate being directed to websites that consist of a few keyword loaded sentences walled in by blocks of advertisements for other similar websites.
Roll on the day when someone invents a search engine that can distinguish between a real niche website and an advertising vehicle built from a cheap kit. Maybe we can get back to the time when searching the Internet was faster than catching a bus to the library and thumbing through books.
Copyright 2006 Elaine Currie
Dee Schrock asked:
If you are looking for an easy science fair project you really don’t have to look far. There are ideas all around us. Pick any topic that interests you and you can come up with a science fair project for it. Remember, your project doesn’t have to be complex to be good. You can pick an easy science fair project and as long as you understand the project, are able to explain it and present it nicely, you will get great marks. You may even get marks better than some of your peers who choose to do complicated projects that they don’t fully understand.
Easy science fair ideas are testing people’s sense of smell. This can be accomplished by gathering a few different scents and asking some volunteers if they can identify them. Another easy project would be to see if the surface on which a snail is travelling affects the speed that it moves, you could investigate whether cockroaches have a sense of direction, or if ants prefer plain water, sugar water or salt water.
You could also test and see if plants will grow towards light, or if they can grow without sunlight at all. If that doesn’t interest you, you could try making your own tornado. This is a surprisingly easy experiment; all you need is water, a jar, some dish detergent and food coloring. Mix the water, a teaspoon of dish detergent and some food coloring into a jar, shake it up for 20 seconds and then give it a spin. You will then have an instant tornado! There are endless possibilities so let your mind go wild and you are sure to come up with a great winning project!
Dee Schrock asked:
Kids science fair projects are quite simple to come up with. Kids are constantly asking questions like “What happens if” or “How does this work?” The next time they ask a question, instead of just telling them the answer, help them find the answer out on their own. They’ll feel great about themselves when they’ve accomplished the experiment and found out the answer by themselves. One experiment for kids to try would be to see if water proof mascara is really water proof. All you need for this experiment is a few different brands of mascara, some paper and running water from a tap. Brush the mascara on to the paper and after allowing it time to dry, place it under the running water and see which brands are really waterproof.
Other Kids science fair projects are to see whether cockroaches have a sense of direction. Others such as how much food a caterpillar can consume in one day, or how about seeing which kind of surface snails can move faster on, gravel, sand or cement can also be fun ideas. You could also try running a mouse through a maze and seeing how long it takes them to get to the end, or drawing a line from beginning to end and seeing if the mouse is able to follow it. This can be a great project if you know someone with a pet mouse you can borrow, because if you borrow one from the pet store, chances are your child won’t want to return it afterwards and you may end up with a new family pet!
Doug Nicholson asked:
Science fair projects can be fun experiences if you find the right one. Do you know what the hardest thing is for most students when assigned a science project? Many would say it’s coming up with an idea that interests them and then getting it started. If that is the case with you, then these ideas for simple science fair projects will be just what you need this year.
Gravity
Gravity is the earth’s pull or attraction on objects. Gravity is what holds you and I to the ground and keeps everything else that moves from floating around in space. Everything from people, pets, rocks, water, books, schools, houses, cars, softballs, and more, have weight because of the earth’s gravity. You may know that things have different weights depending on how big and dense they are. A small marble for example weighs less than a baseball.
Did you know that even though a baseball weighs more, a small marble and a baseball will both fall through the air at the same speed? In other words if they are dropped from the same height, at the same time, they will both hit the ground at the same time. This idea can be easily turned into a simple science fair project that you would enjoy.
Humidity
Humidity simply means how much water vapor or moisture the air around us contains. The amount of water vapor in the air will vary depending on the time of year, where you are located, the type of air mass over your area at the time, etc.
How well air can hold moisture depends also on the temperature of the air. The higher the temperature the more moisture air can hold. The lower the air temperature the less moisture the air can hold.
This is why we see dew on the cars and grass in the mornings sometimes. The air is often warmer during the day than at night and collects moisture from evaporation. At night when the temperature drops the air can’t hold all the moisture it has collected and it condenses (the water falls out and collects on colder objects) onto cars, grass, etc. that are cooler.
Can you think of a simple science fair projects experiment to show that air can hold more moisture when its warmer than when its colder? How about taking a glass of cold water from the refrigerator and placing it on a table or counter in a warm room. Does water collect on the outside of the glass? The colder glass cools the warmer moisture laden air that is touching it causing some of the water to collect on the outside of the glass.
Nic Haffner asked:
Companies around the world today compete to bring products and technologies to market faster than ever before. The global economy means that delaying by even a few weeks can mean the difference between market leader and market follower. To train a global workforce about new products and skills needed to compete in the global marketplace more and more organizations are turning to using online education delivery systems such as the Aspen Learning Content Management Server system. This fully integrated, online learning or educational system allows content to be delivered, measured and managed worldwide at the click of a button.
With a workforce that can be spread across multiple continents, and ever-decreasing budgets for travel and training, companies are turning to online content delivery systems to bring training to the employees without worrying about travel or instructor expenses. Utilizing such systems an organization can tailor learning needs to the individual employee, department or organizational goal. A training module can be customized based on the role the employee plays in the organization and what level of training they will need to fulfill their responsibility in the entire life-cycle of the product.
Online instruction is also a benefit to employees, in addition to the cost-savings benefit to the company. Studies show that employees who receive regular training or more satisfied with their job and by offering online courses the employee can schedule training for when it is convenient for them - be it during the day, in the evening or the weekends.
Magrietha Du Plessis asked:
In this elementary science fair project we are going to find out what can be done to prevent soil erosion. I think we all know that soil erosion is a very big problem all over the world.
Here are some of the Scary Facts:
Did you know that the worlds’ deserts grows by about 16 000square miles a year? In the US alone about 7 billion tones of very valuable topsoil is eroded by streams and rivers, as they carry the topsoil away. Did you know that about 75% of the rocks on earth are made up of small grains and particles that are pressed together under the weight of tons of water over very long periods? These rocks are called “sedimentary rocks.”
This is a really worrying situation, don’t you agree?
Well in this elementary science fair project we are going to be looking at one of the methods we can use to prevent this. We are going to do an elementary science fair project to find out whether planting grass or other plants in areas with a lot of erosion can help.
What you will need for this science experiment:
Some easy growing grass seeds Two rectangular cake pans 2 Tick books of the same size Enough soil to fill the pans A jug to pour the water with Water
What you have to do
First of all you have to fill one of your cake tins with the soil. Plant your grass seeds in this cake tin. Water this tin thoroughly with water. Place this tin in a sunny spot where the grass can grow well. Now you have to gently water your seeds and make sure that the soil in the pan is moist at all times without over watering. Wait for your grass to grow about 3 inches high. Fill up the other cake tin with soil. Water it just enough to be as moist as the tin with your grass in it. Now you have to place the one end of both your tins on your books to make them lie at an angle. Fill your jug with water and pour the water down the cake tin without the grass. Note what happens. Now you pour the water down the cake tin with the grass growing in it. Make a note of what happens. What is the difference? What is the reason for the difference?. write down your explanation.
What happens here is that in the pan without grass the some of the dirt is carried away with the water. This is what happens in nature in places where there is nothing to stem the flow of water. In the pan with the grass growing in it, the grass stems the flow of the water and less soil is carried away with the water. So, by planting indigenous grass and other indigenous plants in areas where soil erosion is a problem, the soil erosion can be slowed down.
Viveck Sharma asked:
Content writing isn’t a simple task as it seems to be. A content writer has to maintain relevancy and descriptiveness, and needs to keep in mind that the content is search engine friendly. This can only be done by incorporating important keywords and key-phrases without making the article look badly written.
SEO content writing is one of the hottest jobs in the online marketing market these days, but due to lack of adequate time and money, many online businesses have now started using software to generate content for their websites. This content writing software is easily available and can be bought for a nominal price. Moreover, it can work incessantly in accordance with your specific commands.
The only question that pops up, is content writing software answer to all your content writing woes? Below are some of the advantages of such software:
A) This magical software helps in researching on the particular topic you are writing on.
B) Content writing software is easily operated; just enter a set of few keywords applicable to your subject. Within a few minutes it will gather all pertinent information available online.
C) If you wish to save money by not hiring content writers, this software can easily churn pages on end.
D) Article writing software isn’t very expensive, and easily affordable by all businesses.
E) This software saves a lot of time by cutting down the time spent on research and sorting.
F) After writing, you can even submit each article to various article directories and generate backlinks for your website.
Despite all these advantages, content writers still insist that software cannot replace the proficiency of a human brain. A content writer can easily produce fresh, unique, and quality articles. Manual content writing also guarantees quality. If you come across a seasoned SEO content writer, your website will surely have quality content that can be easily optimized on search engines. In fact, a content writer can also make specific alterations when necessary, whereas the content writing software will find it difficult to change whatever has been already produced or generated. Being an experienced web business owner, don’t shy away from hiring a content writer just to save some money.
Magrietha Du Plessis asked:
Doing easy elementary science projects need not be kept only for science fairs. There are many good reasons why you and your kids should do science experiments all the time.
Here are a few of those reasons:
It gives you and the kids the opportunity to spend some quality time together Kids love exploring and it is good to use this natural curiosity to teach them basic science without them even noticing. Science experiments using easy to obtain supplies are also very suitable for homeschoolers.
Our easy elementary science project for today falls in to the category of “fun.” It is a very simple experiment and the kids will be able to do it with very little help from you. You will have to supervise though; otherwise you will have a big mess on your hands!
To start, explain to the kids that the earth consists of rocks, sand, humus, water and air. This is all the “ingredients” necessary for life on earth. Plants, animals and humans all need them in order to be able to survive. In our science project we are going to have a look at soil. We are going to find out how much air is trapped in different kinds of soil.
What you need:
5 Small clear jars Water 5 Soil samples from different kinds of soil (go exploring with the kids to find samples in different places) Labels A pen A notebook
What you have to do:
Fill your jars halfway full with your soil samples. One kind of soil into each jar. Mark each jar with a name that will help you remember which soil you placed in which jar. Fill the jars with water until they are almost full. Now observe what happens. You will see that bubbles start rising to the top of the water. Can you explain why there are more bubbles in some of the bottles than in others? Make notes of all your results, it is also a good idea to take photos of your result if you are doing this as a science fair project or as part of your science lessons for homeschooling.
You will note that the soil that is the most tightly packed will have less air in it than for instance a soil with lots of humus, taken maybe from a flower bed. Do you think plants grow better in well aerated soil or in soil more densely packed? This can be the subject of a later easy elementary science project. Have fun!
