SPS President Seeks Ideas for Fun Physics Activities

[Ai52487963]

Ok, so I've been elected president of my department's Society of Physics Students (SPS) and I'm looking for physics or science-related things to do, or rather, things to keep people coming to the meetings.

For our next meeting, we're going to draw up a draft for a campus-wide egg-drop battle between the science departments. I was thinking about doing something similar with a mini triathlon in the spring.

So between that, ordering new t-shirts, sponsoring my lecture series and nights of taking the department telescope out for observing, what other physics, astronomy or science-related things could keep people interested in coming back to meetings? Any ideas?

 

[tribdog]

explosives.

 

[Evo]

explosives.

 

[tribdog]

nothing draws a crowd like explosives. I was trying to be helpful. I don't appreciate being called dumb. and I don't mind a few dead kittens. Perhaps you can think of some way to make it up to me.

 

[Evo]

nothing draws a crowd like explosives. I was trying to be helpful. I don't appreciate being called dumb. and I don't mind a few dead kittens. Perhaps you can think of some way to make it up to me.

Heheh, what would it take? Why do I ask?

 

[tribdog]

How good of a kisser are you?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

Ok, so I've been elected president of my department's Society of Physics Students (SPS) and I'm looking for physics or science-related things to do, or rather, things to keep people coming to the meetings.

Congratulations!

For our next meeting, we're going to draw up a draft for a campus-wide egg-drop battle between the science departments. I was thinking about doing something similar with a mini triathlon in the spring.

So between that, ordering new t-shirts, sponsoring my lecture series and nights of taking the department telescope out for observing, what other physics, astronomy or science-related things could keep people interested in coming back to meetings? Any ideas?

Do like a chapter in Texas did, and solve a mystery.
http://www.spsnational.org/wormhole/utd_sps_report.pdf

You might be able to get some ideas from our Credible Anomalies Napster
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=58374

 

[Chi Meson]

I agree with Tribdog on this one. Exploding kittins.

And beer.

Seriously, when I was an undergrad, the science meetings were some of the worst times I an recall. What everyone wanted to do, but no one ever did, was BURN THINGS and BLOW UP THINGS.

I mean, get a tank of pure oxygen...we all wanted to but no one...

and no more liquid nitrogen! GOD NO! Or helium. JEEZ! How about that sulfur hexachloride instead? OK it doesn't blow up.

How about "NO RULES PINEWOOD DERBY" ! Whatever it takes to take out the other car!

Sodium wars!

Self-destructing hot air balloons!

What did we do? Slide shows of CERN?

 

[tribdog]

watch now. Chi Meson says it, good idea. tribdog says it, you're an idiot.

 

[Chi Meson]

It's like two scenarios:

One: the Mythbusters find out how many firecrackers it takes to open the door of a steel safe.--intelligent

two: Jake and Louie blowed up a safe with a bunch of firecrackers.--dumb

 

[ZapperZ]

When I was in the SPS as UW-Madison, we did a few things that I thought were quite useful. We, of course, toured several facilities within driving distance of the campus (Fermilab, Wis's Synchrotron lab, etc). But the one thing that I thought was very useful was that we had a few faculty members who had money to hire undergrads (either during the semester or over the summer) gave short talks about their projects. Not only were these talks a good advertisements for hiring students, they also gave the students a good venue to look for possible side income and also some simple research work to do. I thought that was the best part of being in the SPS at that time.

Zz.