STEM+CLUB

[|STEAM FAIR 2018]
Do you think you can drop a ping pong ball from a height of 2 meters and make it bounce higher than 2 meters? Who is going to make a ping pong ball bounce higher than anybody else? You are allowed to drop a ball(s) anywhere lower than 2 meters.

Let's try this intriguing question from Problems of the week of Brilliant [|Momentum of a tennis ball]

When people start telling you that you're crazy, you just might be on to the most important innovation in your life. - Larry Ellison

1. If you put a metal coin (i.e. nickel alloy) on dry ice at room temperature, the coin vibrates. Why would this happen and what would happen if you replace the coin with a plastic coin?
 * Lecture 11.4 - Example: [|Dropping Stacked Balls] [|HMC Mooc] Published on 7 Jan 2015 || [|Stacked Ball Drop] [|Physics Girl] Published on 20 Jan 2015 ||
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2. When you put a heavy object on a piece of ice, the part where the object is on the ice, is melting faster than the rest of the ice. Why is that?

3. A logical person might assume that it would take longer for hot water to plunge down the temperature scale to 0 degrees Celsius and freeze than would cold water. But oddly enough, this is not always the case. It was first observed by a Tanzanian high school student, Erasto Mpemba, in 1963. Hot water actually freezes faster than cold water when the two bodies of water are exposed to the same subzero surroundings and no one knows why.

4. Is the refractive index of ice and water the same? Explain your answer? (Why?) If not, which one is bigger and why?

5. Design and develop a device you can carry an egg from one end of the science corridor to the other as fast as possible without breaking it. You cannot physically hold the egg and the egg must not break.

6. Why does water expand when it freezes?

7. Why does a container of water freeze from the top down?

8. Since water expands when it freezes, and when it boils, at what temperature does water have the greatest density. Explain your justification?

9. Why do impurities lower the melting point of ice and raise the boiling point of water?

10. Do all impurities (in water) act this way?

11. If all matter was in a singularity with infinite density and infinite gravitational force, what caused it to explode?

12. How does a photon accelerate to the speed of light and how long does it take?

13. How does a photon or an electron move? Is it an excitation of a field, and is it propagation and vibration of energy across the field or is it actual movement?

14. Why do two 9 ohms resistors in parallel have total resistance of only 4.5 ohms? (You need to give an analogy to Ms. LEE)

15. A hollow cylinder is completely filled with frozen water. Will it take longer to roll down an inclined plane while it is frozon or after it melts?

16. Given an infinite number of identical books. They are rigid and perfectly rectangular and placed in a stack of the edge of a table. What is the maximum distance, parallel to the ground, that the edge of the top book can get from the edge of the table without falling over. As far away as you like.

17. With 7 identical wires which are stretched out in between two cities, what is the minimum number of journies needed between the two ends in order to uniquely identitify each wire? You have been given a battery, a light bulb and labels.

18. One a 20 cm x 20 cm square cake, how many birthday candles can you place on top of the cake if no two candles can be closer than 2 cm? We assume that the candles can be placed right up to the edge of the cake and the candles do have zero area. (128)

19a. You have an unlimited number of wires and two types of resistors, 1 ohm and 2 ohms. You are required to construct circuit that has a total resistance of 3.14159 ohms? The winner will be anyone who makes it closer to 3.14159 using the minimum number of resistance in a circuit. 19b. Given maximum of 20 resistors of 1 or 2 ohms, construct an electric circuit that would have total resistance closest to p ?

20. What is the relationship between the relative refractive indices of water, clear ice and opaque ice? Explain the scientific reasons for your answer(argument).

21. When you see an object through a very small hole, what you see is smaller than the original object and you will also experience that the object looks clearer if you have bad eyesight. Can you explain this phenomenon?

a. What is the limitaion of the approach of this reasoning/explanation? b. Does it explain all various phenomena you observed? c. Is there any part that is explained you found problematic? d. Are you only relying on one source? ||
 * Before you get to a conclusion, think of the questions below to develop your critical thinking skills.


 * Thought experiment:** Think "What is going to happen and why it is going to happen" then "Do your research". After completing the thought experiment and research process several times, modify your hypothesis as necessary. Then you will conduct your experiment.

Reflect upon your thought process and experiment if it is necessary.
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 * [|Stare at the dot!] [|Quirkology] Published on Jul 30, 2015 || [|Brain Games - Colour illusion] Published on Mar 19, 2015 [|National Geographic] ||

[|The first 20 hours -- how to learn anything] | Josh Kaufman [|TEDx Talks] Published on 14 Mar 2013 media type="youtube" key="5MgBikgcWnY" width="560" height="315"

media type="youtube" key="F8UFGu2M2gM" width="560" height="315" [|How simple ideas lead to scientific discoveries] [|TED-Ed] Published on 13 Mar 2012

[|Feynman and Reading] [|mrCdoubleT] Published on 2 Mar 2009 media type="youtube" key="M1TiXLGqlM4" width="560" height="315" Richard Feynman: [|Feynman's Father and Inertia] [|RichardFeynmanLove] Published on 12 Oct 2010 [|http://www.FeynmanPhysicsLectures.com] media type="youtube" key="Zjm8JeDKvdc" width="560" height="315" [|Richard Feynman - Names Don't Constitute Knowledge] [|Caitlin Spies] Published on 17 Sep 2014 media type="youtube" key="lFIYKmos3-s" width="560" height="315" [|Richard Feynman. Why]. [|firewalker] Published on 2 Apr 2012 media type="youtube" key="36GT2zI8lVA" width="560" height="315"

media type="youtube" key="MlJdMr3O5J4" width="560" height="315" [|How to Study Way More Effectively] | The Feynman Technique [|Freedom in Thought] Published on 17 Oct 2017

Frim a scientific point of you what could you possibly do to stop this from happening again? Possible series to watch for scientific inspiration 1. Richard Hammonds 'Engineering connection' 2. 'Seconds from disaster' 3. Air crash investigation
 * media type="youtube" key="XTwbkYYdZBw" width="560" height="315" || media type="youtube" key="_uEuHxtTn04" width="560" height="315" || media type="youtube" key="GrFqJCBDaVw" width="560" height="315" || media type="youtube" key="5kp7gL_XPD4" width="560" height="315" ||  ||
 * [|The Gunpowder Plot - Exploding the Legend] [|History Files] Published on 4 May 2017 || [|Seconds From Disaster Death In Mid Air] Documentary 2016 [|Jake Gabriel] Published on 28 Jan 2017 || [|Falling from the Sky British Airways Flight Air Crash Investigations] 2015 5[|news chanell youtube 2] Published on 20 Sep 2015 || [|Worst Engineering Disasters in History - Episode 1][|Engineering Disasters] Published on 21 Nov 2017 ||  ||