What Can We Perform for the Physics Open Day?

[Bassim]

Hello guys (and girls as well). My college is having a physics open day on the 30th of april, however we should be done our preparations by the 30th of april. do you guys have ANY idea that we perform? no matter how small or large it is please share it, we need the ideas to keep flowing

 

[jedishrfu]

Are you looking for things to demo?

At the recent Explore UT open house, they setup a trebuchet to hurl water balloons into a crowd of students.

 

[jedishrfu]

some physics simulations on computer paired with a real physical system would be cool like simulate a pendulum and then show one next to it in action.

 

[Bassim]

yes I am looking for stuff to demo, please help my instructor emailed me he needs me to get some experiments

 

[berkeman]

they setup a trebuchet to hurl water balloons into a crowd of students

"They"? I'm guessing that it was *you* at the controls on that demo!

 

[berkeman]

yes I am looking for stuff to demo, please help my instructor emailed me he needs me to get some experiments

At the open houses for my undergrad university (UC Davis), there were several interesting exhibits...

** A post that could swing between the poles of a large permanent magnet, and you could attach disks of various materials to the end of the post. The ones that were conductive got stopped as they swung through the gap (because of what?)...

** A red diode laser that was modulated with music from a radio receiver, and a photodetector and audio amp across the room. It was fun watching kids (and parents) block the beam with their hand to cut off the music...

And Google Images results for a search on Fun Physics Demonstrations... https://www.google.com/search?hl=en...sedr...0...1ac.1.62.img..0.26.515.y3lR5Lykj1M

 

[jedishrfu]

There was one simple setup with a computer and an acoustical sensor attached to a sledge hammer. You could then make your own "earthquakes by dropping the sledge hammer on a flat rock. The computer would display the acoustical trace.

 

[jedishrfu]

"They"? I'm guessing that it was *you* at the controls on that demo!

No, it was they (the ME majors). I was a disinterested bystander walking by making sure it didn't hit me.

Another cool demo was the Oobleck pool where they dropped a ton of corn starch in water, mixed it up thoroughly and invited students to run across the surface.

http://www.livescience.com/21536-oobleck-recipe.html

 

[Bassim]

guys i truly appreciate your efforts. however, i want something that is more physics-ish rather than engineering. one of the goals of our fair is to make studnets love physics

 

[jedishrfu]

Define physicsish

OObleck is an example of a non-Newtonian fluid

The trebuchet uses a variety of principles to lob an object, the objects trajectory is a well defined physics problem.

Acoustical sensing uses a lot of underlying physics of waves and reflection and refraction...

 

[Bassim]

oobleck needs a lor of work bro
trebuchet is more of an engineering issue
can u alaborate please on acoustical?
THANK YOU LOADS! <3

 

[Bassim]

bump! please :')

 

[jedishrfu]

I think you need to do some research on your own now. We have provided a few examples already and you've rejected them, so rather than continue here you should do some personal research to find what you're looking for.

 

[Bassim]

ohh I am so sorry if you felt rejected! i actually finished up google
its not me whos rejecting them, its my physics professor. please give me more i beg you T_T