Saturday, November 18, 2006

Third Meeting: Van de Graaff Generator & Rocket Dune Buggy

Last Friday, the 10th of November, we held our third meeting. We started off by playing around with a Van de Graaff generator, which went quite well. I've never seen so many people so eager to hurt themselves. It's a bit disconcerting, actually.

We started off with some, ahem, shocking high-fives. Then it progressed to fist pounds and even a slap or two accross the face. Several people formed a long chain to extend their collective reach.

Then, by special request, we learned a bit about nukes. Unfortunately, the person who requested it was absent that day, so it was totally pointless and I apologize for wasting your precious time.

Once we were done with that we strapped a rocket engine to Tyler's GI Joe dune buggy. Unfortunately, it was a lot heavier than I had anticipated, so we sent it... uh... flying a whole ten feet. :) Well, to look on the bright side, that's about 8 feet farther than I thought it would go.

Check out the videos:


Video: VanDeGraaf Shocks All


Video: Rocket Car

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Second Meeting and Harvest Fest: Success! (ish)

Sorry this update is coming a little late. I've been super-busy. Anyway, without further ado:

Second Meeting

We had our second club meeting last Friday. Vivek started us off by leading us through the steps of making some silly putty as preparation for our Harvest Fest booth. Once everything was up and running smoothly, I (and a small breakaway contingent) began to quickly assemble a camera rocket and prepare it for launch. Yearbook Club had come around toward the beginning of club block to take club photos, but we thought we could do better with an aerial shot.

Unfortunately, we had trouble getting the film to advance and decided to launch the rocket from the Lower Field without enabling the camera. It was a fairly windy day, so we made sure to angle the launch rod away from the school (and into the wind). Countdown and liftoff went smoothly, but the wind had died down slightly - we had overcompensated for it. As the rocket deployed its parachute and ejected several pieces of flame-proof wadding (each a small speck in the sky), we lost track of exactly what was what. It came down somewhere in the vicinity of the graveyard, the next-door neighbor, or Hammond Street.

Twenty or so high schoolers soon flooded the neighbor's property and fanned out to look for our rocket. It must have been a strange sight for the puzzled folks staring out the first-floor window at us. Almost immediately Peter jumped up onto the rock wall the separated the neighbors from the graveyard, and before long a large portion of our group had jumped the wall.

Our search was in vain, however. Despite our considerable manpower we never did find the rocket. Perhaps it was just as well that we never managed to arm the camera.

Harvest Fest

On Saturday was Beaver's annual Harvest Fest. For the first time, the BSEC had a booth (or two) of its own.

Segway

The first things people were likely to notice upon entering the Green Gym were two i-series Segway HTs gliding around a test track. This proved to be quite a popular attraction; the waiting list was full from setup time to shutdown time. At one point the wait was around 45 minutes long, yet still people found the rides worthwhile. The 11th Grade (with whom we shared the Green Gym) accused us of stealing their customers, but in truth I think we only attracted more people to the area. Cross-promotion is a powerful thing!

Many expressed frustration with never having a chance to take a Segway ride, so we'll think about doing this again sometime.

Silly Putty

Hampered somewhat by a lack of club helpers (thank you Emily, David & Co. for keeping it running), the silly putty booth was nevertheless a very enjoyable diversion from long wait times. I was busy the whole time at the Segway and 11th Grade booths, so if anyone has any silly putty tales to tell, please do so in the comments.

Third Meeting Plans

Unfortunately we're not quite sure what we're doing at our next meeting. Our tentative plan is to build potato guns, but there are some liability concerns. (No, a simple waiver wouldn't solve those problems.) But don't worry - we have several backup plans. Whatever we do, it'll be cool. Stay tuned.