First Meeting: Dry Ice and Potato Gun

We held our first meeting of this year on October 5, and I think it went pretty well. We played with dry ice and the potato gun. I've posted a video recap below.

One thing that we're aware of is that there was quite a bit of waiting, and we didn't have a chance for everyone in the club to really get involved. That's a hard thing to do with forty people, which is why we may experiment with breaking into multiple groups at our next meeting.

If anyone has any other comments, feel free to email Peter, Vivek, or me, or leave a comment on this post.

I know I had a lot of fun, and we look forward to seeing you again this Friday! We'll be playing with rockets, potato guns (bulding our own!!), and using magical chemistry skills unlike the world has ever seen, making silly putty. :)

Year 3 Begins

On Friday we announced the third year of the Beaver Science and Engineering Club. Unfortunately, Vivek could not be present, but at the last minute he beamed us this transmission from space:

"Dear Students of Beaver Country Day School,

"I am sorry I was unable to partake in this ceremonial gathering to commemorate the 3rd annual BSEC initiation, for I too am partaking in a ceremony of galactic proportions. Yes... that's right...I'm on the moon--that glowing white object you see in the sky every night. I would have come back, but... it would seem that upon arrival of this dusty, mountainous abyss of moon world that my space ship found its way deep, deep, deep into a giant cavity on the moon's surface.

"In other words, I got stuck in a crater.

"I give my sincerest apologies, and I... [radio cut off] ...Great Oz! They have eyes... red eyes... and tentacles... Mr. Adjout, help me!"

We wish the best of luck to Vivek and his crew.

On a happier note, this year we had a record 36 sign-ups, plus the three co-presidents and two faculty advisors for a grand total of 41 members. Our first meeting will be Friday, October 5. Hope to see you all there!

- Toph

P.S. If this is your first time looking around the blog, here's a link to a few BSEC videos from the past.

Make a Radio

We've tried this before, with very limited success. Maybe this will work for you:

Link

"The Best Homemade Explosion Video EVER"

Well, the last few meetings of last spring will remain a mystery for now--but in the mean time, here's a fun video I just found:



:)

Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Sixteenth Meeting Recaps

Thirteenth Meeting (April 20, 2007)

Ms. Nickerson and I ran clubs alone, since Peter and Vivek were off getting tuxedos fitted.

We made speakers out of wire and magnets, using a borrowed iPod as a sound source, and some other people tried to make electric motors. And some of us just had fun standing donut magnets up on edge on the table and rolling others around, making the stood-up ones spin nicely.

In our last meeting, one club member had conceived of an entirely new class of rocket: the Nocka Rocket, a.k.a. a hollow tinfoil tube with a pinched-off nose and a rocket jammed inside. This meeting, we actually went through with it. First we used a C-engine, and launched it out of the PVC launch tube. I didn’t even see the launch, ‘cause I was running through the play structure to get to Nocka and help him with the feisty igniter when he got it to work. But I saw it in mid-air! It spun some, dove, “pop”ed and smoked.

Then we went back inside and did another one, only with a D engine instead. This one I did see. I launched it (again from the PVC tube), it spun, it dove, it exploded with a nice burst of flame. The end, time for lunch.

Fourteenth Meeting (April 27, 2007)

Finally, we build bridges! Or try, anyway. In truth, after we split up into two groups, we never got far beyond the planning phase. We intended to continue in the next meeting, but we ended up having to take a break because of club member absences and such.

Fifteenth Meeting (May 4, 2007)

Hey, May the Fourth be with you!

We prepared three rockets. One was a long, thin, sleek black thing that Brendan found in The Closet. The second was a classic Nocka Rocket, only with a special plastic Charzard nose cone (which we lost). The third was a glider rocket that Brendan found and, with help, assembled. The first went off nicely, like so:


Video: BSEC 06-07: 15th Meeting: Rocket Launch

The second did what our made-from-scratch rockets normally do: launch, spin, nose-dive, explode. And the third we didn't have a chance to launch. That'll have to wait until another meeting.

Other than that? Umm, well, I do think I'm forgetting something, but I don't know what. Oh, we had Tootsie Pops, I think. But no, there was something else...

Sixteenth Meeting (May 11, 2007)

This Friday was a special schedule day, thanks to it being the Seniors' last day. (Congratulations to them, by the way!) As such, we had only about half the time we usually have--and half the attendance, too. We played briefly with LEGO MindStorms robots, mainly having them smash into each other so wee could see which one was stronger. It's fun to watch the wheels skitter about when they've been knocked off but remain wired to the control box.

Aside from that, we continued preparing our second glider rocket of the year.

Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Meeting Recaps

We're coming out of somewhat of a lull thanks to four missed meetings (due to lack of school) and a general lack of activity. But fear not for the future of the club! Next week we're doing bridge-building and more. In the mean time, a recap of what's been happening since the last blog update more than a month ago:

Tenth Meeting (March 9, 2007)

We begin our egg launch project with what amounted to a planning meeting.

Eleventh Meeting (March 16, 2007)

We successfully launched an egg and returned it unharmed! Woohoo! We'll have cameraphone video at some point if we can get it from Willy...

Twelfth Meeting (April 13, 2007)

This meeting was for all intents and purposes called off, although we did half-heartedly attempt to make a slingshot.

Ninth Meeting: 8 Flips, Looking to the Future

We had our ninth meeting last Friday. We learned a bit about electricity from Peter, shocked ourselves (literally), and launched two rockets. The first was a stunning success, a.k.a. didn't catch fire and survived the whole flight. It shot up and deployed two little gliders, which we never found. But the main body survived! We haven't done that in quite a while!

And the second one... well, let's let it speak for itself. :)


Video: BSEC 06-07 - Flip Clip

More video coming soon, if I can figure out how to free up some space on my computer. (Wanna guess how much I have? Try 895 MB. We started out with 148 GB. That's digital video for ya.)

Looking to the Future

We'll looking at meeting every week from now on, starting... when? Next Friday? Let us know whether you're free during A Block.

Oh, and we're also actually starting our egg launch contest and possibly bridge-building.

As always, we welcome (solicit, even!) your feedback and ideas.

Eigth Meeting: Uhhh, you call *that* a meeting?

Ms. Nickerson was out today, so we couldn't really do that much today. We tried to make a hydrogen fuel cell car (from a kit) but for some reason it didn't work. At least now we have a handy-dandy little hydrogen generator (and solar panel too, though we didn't use that today).

We had some fun with a little static-electricity thing at least.

Next meeting, two weeks from now, will be better, I hope--we're starting a new egg launch contest! Whichever group gets their egg the highest (by any means) and returns it to the ground unharmed, wins. We're not allowed on the roof, though...

We also want to make Pikashoes, like so:

- The Original
- The Variant

Oh, and Vivek skipped. ;)

Video coming soon, though there's not much to see.