Final Meeting Preview: Thermite!!!

Tomorrow, as many of you may realize, is a special day. It's senior send-off. It's our (seniors') last day of classes. (So sad...) And last but not least, it is the final meeting of the 2007-2008 season of the science club.

If you go to one meeting all year, I'd recommend you go to this one. We are very pleased to say that we have procured a bit of thermite for fiery fun. We basically have no clue what we're doing, but that's what adult supervision is for. :) Thermite burns at 4,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

Here's a video of some experts playing with thermite. And here's a few kids who have hardly any clue what they're doing.

ADDITIONALLY, and even more important in the long term, we're voting for next year's leaders of the science club. (If you want to be on the ballot but haven't talked to me, please reply ASAP.)

By the way, re: the thermite--it'll melt basically ANYTHING, so if anyone has any ideas, bring something in. We're also looking for someone to bring in an old cast-iron pot or pan that will not be returned (aside from maybe as a glob of melty metal) or some dry sand. Let me know.

I hope to see you all there! It's shaping up to be a great final meeing!

Tenth Meeting: The Shape of Things to Come

(Ninth real meeting. :))

Today we had a nice little meeting. We were supposed to work on our bridges, but that's sort of falling apart, haha. But Willy did a random little rocket thing, and we talked about the future. The Petovek Administration is nearing its end; we have just one meeting left (and early signs are that it'll be an especially good one...).

A new era approaches. When Year Four begins, it will be under entirely new leadership. Our survey a couple weeks ago asked whether people were interested in being one of that new batch of leaders. Nine people said maybe or yes. I've emailed those people; if you didn't get it but are still interested in a leadership position, please let me (Toph) know.

The gist of it is that in a week or so, we'll send out a list of candidates, and you guys will vote. And something like the top 3 finishers will be our new fearless leaders. That'll be a little later; this is for now just a heads-up.

But in addition to co-presidents, we have a couple special positions open: Blogger and videographer. We want our work here to continue, so that folks who can't come can still read about and see some of the stuff we do. If you're interested in taking over the blog, or if you're interested in filming our meetings and putting them on YouTube, or both, please let me know.

Final comment: the T-shirt issue. On surveys, 9/15 people said they'd buy one, 4 said maybe, two said no. So that seems pretty positive, but we just don't know where to go with it. If anyone has any t-shirt ideas--designs, text, etc.--please let me know.

Video coming soon. Maybe. :)

Ninth Building: Bridges

Today we had a quiet little meeting; we got started on building some little bridges out of wood sticks. They have to be 2 feet long and at least 6 cm wide. The goal is for your bridge to support more weight (hung from the bottom) than the other team's.

Next meeting we'll finish them and test them. And then, since it's one of the last meetings before the seniors take off, we can burn a few bridges on our way out. Ha! Get it? It's a pun.

But knowing us, it'll also probably come true.

Eighth Meeting: Nalgenes

On Friday (March 14), the science club met for the first time in 7 weeks (the 7th meeting didn't count) in order to try to break some Nalgene bottles.

We put an Estes model rocket D engine in the first one and ignited it. It smoked a ton, spun around a lot, and ended up with hole burned in one side and some meltiness.

The freshmen took the next one and dropped big rocks on it over a drain. The bottle broke their first rock, but eventually they broke it (and subsequently broke the first bottle some more).

The third one (a smaller variant) we half-buried in the mud of the softball field and filled with another D engine, plus some ethanol. The first engine didn't do enough damage, so we tried again. It got very melty, but actually survived relatively intact. Interesting.

We'll have some video soon...

Seventh Meeting: Nothing

I (Toph) have been sick since Monday, so I missed clubs yesterday, and I hear it pretty much just didn't happen. But we'll see you Feb. 22! :) We have some bridge-building materials left over from last year, so maybe we'll try to, y'know, build something. I'll try to keep this blog updated as we get more info. But for now, there's nothing much to say.

Sixth Meeting: Glorious Eggs, Philosophy

EDIT: Hey look, we were featured on the Beaver web site, with pictures and everything!

Friday's meeting was, in a word, glorious. We started out by just taping two rocket engines to an egg facing opposite directions--it spun and whirred and when the smoke cleared the egg was just plain old gone. And then we launched Vivek's group's 2-stage egg rocket, which sort of hovered in the air for a moment before dropping to the ground. And when the first engine ignited the second, the first got shot out the back and off it went. It actually caught on fire, and it was burning quite nicely before Ms. Nickerson cruelly put it out. Too bad. The warmth was much appreciated while it lasted. And for the final one, we tried igniting three engines at once. And, well, two of them went!


Video: BSEC: Sixth Meeting (Third Year)

Ineconomies of Scale

Unfortunately, our attendance dropped to the lowest it's been all year on Friday. It's too bad, since it was such an entertaining meeting. But we inevitably reach this point every year--the point where seemingly overnight, half the club disappears. We're completely to blame, of course. We've never been even remotely organized, and there's just not enough stuff for 40 people to do every meeting.

But today's meeting only confirmed what many club members have known for a long time: with very few people, we can be very productive.

So we've been thinking. What if we had "do" meetings and "view" meetings? I feel bad that all members are obliged to go to all meetings, even the ones where nothing happens. So what if a core group prepared things for everyone else to watch at perscribed times? It would be even better if we could get everyone actively involved, of course--for instance, by splitting into subclubs with different foci, like model rocketry or potato guns or robotics. But we're not sure we can pull that off. Everything is completely undecided right now--let us know what you think in the comments.

(Note also that even if we don't announce when we'll be shooting off the rockets, there's a simple formula: come late. But not too late, of course. I'd say 12:20 is when things typically get going. Although actually, today we were shockingly speedy getting the first rocket egg launched....)

Fifth Meeting: More Egg Stuff

On January 11 we had our fifth meeting of the year. Because of bad weather, we didn't have a chance to finish off the egg launch contest, and most people left early. But those who didn't fiddled with strapping model rocket engines right onto the eggs themselves. Video coming soon.

Fourth Meeting: Egg Launch

On Friday, November 30, we began our third annual egg launch contest. We are now divided into three groups, and from what I've seen we all made good progress. (I hear Peter's group has already started testing!) We'll try to finish up and actually get them launched next meeting.

Normally I say "video coming soon" or whatever. This time I won't bother. Frankly, there's not a whole lot to report....... yet. :)

Third Meeting: Kid Pix, Potato Rocket and Target

We started off the meeting with a healthy dose of Kid Pix. Once it became clear that we wouldn't get anything done for at least 20 minutes, I felt bad and let everyone go. But a select few stayed behind, and were rewarded for their patience. Willy stuck a rocket engine in a potato, and we took a few shots at the trusty old target--which, by the way, got a nice shout-out during the Cum Laude assembly the other day. :) Video coming soon.

UPDATE Feb. 9: OK, so the video probably isn't coming soon, but you can spot a quick clip of this meeting in the video montage over at The Beaver Reader.

Second Meeting: Nocka Rockets

Our dear onetime member Andrew Nocka may have left us for the UK, but his spirit lives on in the noble tradition of Nocka Rockets. Today we fired a few off, including a sort of corkscrew one and one with wings. Plus we ate cake. :)


Video: BSEC: Second Meeting (Third Year)

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. :)

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.

Seventh Meeting: Music, Dry Ice, and Rockets

Today we had our seventh BSEC meeting of the year. At the start, Ms. Nickerson had set up some music-related booths for us, including a rather nifty lollipop thingy. Next we somehow acquired some dry ice--I'm still not sure how--and blew up another bottle. Kind of. It only blew up once Ms. Nickerson tried to defuse it, naturally. The next bottle was a total dud.

By that time we had pulled out the rocketry stuff and were plotting two launches. The first would finally make use of Vivek's X-Wing that had been sitting in the closet for 1 1/2 years; the second would make use of, umm, some cardboard and tape and all the rocket engines we could find. (That only means four, alas.)

The X-Wing performed beautifully, right up until, uh, the point at which it nose-dived into the ground. Parachute? Yeah, we had a parachute. Problem is, it deployed about a yard above the ground... and it had a hole. Or two. Not much of a help.

Of course, we'd have been crazy to bother with a parachute on our other project: a cardboard tube with two cardboard wings held together with a little masking tape. (Far more sophisticated than our "rocket javelin" from last time, you see.) The nose-cone, though, was decidedly less sophisticated. At first we had a weight in there, to make it less tail-heavy, but at the last moment ripped it out. (That had grave consequences later on.)

So on that launch the rocket went up like it was supposed to, but then twirled and twisted and dove straight at the crowd of observers. Several people dove to the ground; a couple actually tripped over each other. I'm amazed nobody got burnt. Luckily, the body tube soon detached and left the crowd alone, instead landing right next to the launch pad. A few seconds passed, and then the next stage activated. Only, our pitiful replacement for the weighted nose cone -- aka a bit of tape -- didn't hold. The remaining rockets shot out the front of the tube and streaked into the air... and then landed in the pool.

Interesting experience. Video embedded below:


Video: BSEC 06-07 - Seventh Meeting in Under 5 Minutes

Sixth Meeting: Rocket Javelin

Compared to our Fifth Meeting--when we made dry ice bombs, burned random things, fired the potato gun, smashed a PC monitor to bits, and launched a four-stage rocket car--this meeting was downright boring. But it was fun, especially towards the end. :D

We started out with the intent of making circuits and, ultimately, a Rube Goldberg-esque contraption that would launch a rocket. But we skipped most of that. :)

We wanted to launch a rocket out of the potato gun. There would be very little point, except that it would be, uh, kinda a 'rocket laucher' of sorts. To fit down the barrel we couldn't use a rocket with fins, so we made one from scratch. It was an extremely complicated design: a cardboard tube, a makeshift paper nose, and a D engine stuffed up the back and secured with masking tape. We put a few party poppers in, in the hope that they would, y'know, pop. Oh, and I snuck a little bonus surprise in there... more on that later.

We tried using the potato gun, but it was virtually impossible to attack the leads to the rocket. In the mean time we amused ourselves with some silly string, which ultimately ended up All. Over. The field. We had initially tried dropping the rocket down and then reaching through the hole in the chamber, but it was too cramped for such a delicate operation. Next we tried threading the wire through the barrel and holding the rocket in place, just poking out the end. We were going to attach it with some of the copious silly string lying around until I remembered that we had tape inside.

On that attempt, though, one of the leads had come disconnected. Awwww.

People were getting bored, so we just put the "rocket javelin" it on top of a chair and launched it. Oh boy was that interesting. After circling several times, bouncing off the ground, and coming to a rest facing the opposite direction from the way it had been launched, people decided it was safe to approach. Willy set off at a sprint.

Here's where my surprise comes in. You see, I had decided that it would be more interesting if there was a second engine inside. And I kinda forgot to tell anyone.

So at this point the rocket shot off again. The second engine was much smaller, so it just kinda skittered across the ground. But I sure am glad no one had picked it up.

Oh, and then it caught on fire.

See for yourself:


Video: BSEC 06-07 - Sixth Meeting in Five Minutes

Fifth Meeting: Dry Ice, Smashing a Monitor, Rocket Car and Feedback

Hiya y'all. Thanks for coming on Friday, if you did. It was fun. :) (Last meeting of 2006, too!) Vivek's going to try to get those videos online sometime in the near future.

We started off with some dry ice bombs. Our first one appeared to be a dud, which was a bit scary because you just know that the moment you give up and go to pick it up it'll blow up in your face. Fortunately, that didn't happen. :)

We had several more successful dry ice bombs after that. We also tried burning flour and making bottles of hairspray into flamethrowers and so on. But the real fun was just beginning. (If you've come a lot you'll notice that our meetings tend to start off slow and really pick up towards the end.)

Michael Firer had donated an old broken PC monitor for us to, uh, break even more. At first we tried using the potato gun, but we only got one glancing shot in and then the potato gun decided to, well, stop working. So naturally, we took the biggest, heaviest metal pole we could find, and just smashed it. A lot. Over and over and over again. We tried putting some dry ice bombs inside, but that didn't work so well.

Finally, we decided to re-try a rocket car, since the rocket dune-buggy went a total of, um, 5 feet? Brenden Hickey had recently participated in a 9th Grade Physics Class mousetrap car competition. Obviously, a rocket engine provides a bit more thrust than the spring of a mousetrap. So we strapped on four. You'll have to wait for the video to see just what happened, but suffice it to say it was spectacular. :)

Now for a few thanks:

- Mr. McKinney, for getting the dry ice for us
- Vivek for filming everything
- Michael Firer for donating his old PC monitor, poor thing
- Everyone who cleaned up the remains of said monitor
- Ms. Nickerson, Peter, and Vivek for doing extra cleanup
- Brendan Hickey for donating his car & David Arbeiter for spiffing it up with a few nice rocket engines
- And whoever took attendance at the LAST meeting, not this one (I know, the thanks are kind of late)

And now for some feedback. So far this year in the club we've done all sorts of things, but we haven't really put a lot of time into any single project. What does everyone think about that? We don't want to go too slowly, because then it gets boring. But we don't want to go too fast, because then we can never do any big projects. I feel like we might be rushing through things a bit too much at the moment.

So: is there any project people want to spend some more time on? If you don't want to answer this little mini-survey you don't have to, but we'd love to get people's input. We're open to ANYTHING. So: what do you want to do? Rank the following from first (you really want to do it) to last (you couldn't care less):

- Hovercraft (big project)
- Egg Launch Contest (big project - try to launch eggs in rockets and return them to the ground unharmed)
- Model Car Contest (compete for fastest, farthest distance, etc.)
- Glider/Model Plane/Flying Things Contest (longest flight time, fastest, highest, etc.)
- Building Circuits
- Rube Goldberg Machines Contest (you know--the ball rolls down the ramp and starts the dominos, the dominos trip a wire that releases a bowling ball, the bowling ball knocks over a vase that yanks a weight off a table, the weight falls on a button that launches a rocket - that sort of thing)
- More Coke & Mentos
- More Dry Ice
- More shooting the potato gun at stuff
- More rockets

Any other comments? Anything else you'd like to add to the list?

Fourth Meeting: Potato Gun and Target

Today we shot a target with the potato gun. A lot. At least, we tried a lot. :)

But first we tried launching little match rockets... and we kinda failed. That was pretty, uh, experimental... as in, I had never done it before and barely even knew how to do it. Well, it engaged a lot of people for much of the club block, so apparently there was something interesting about it. Or maybe it was just the matches.

(UPDATE: Willy tells me they gave up on the match rockets and just made a giant match instead. So it was just the matches. Guys, you should have soaked the paper towl in hairspray. It would've been a lot easier to catch on fire.)

Once Vivek returned with a camera we set up the target, leaving a few people behind still playing with the matches. Craig, marksman extraordinaire (he alone hit the improvised target of 'a bag' in our first meeting) took the first shot... and it was a good one. The wood immediately cracked, and the bracing boards on the back popped right off. (One of those boards would soon become the match group's giant match.)

Our next few shots weren't so successful. For the first time, we had two potato guns operating simultaneously. We never got to shoot them at the same time - Ms. Nickerson wouldn't let us (no clue why) - but it made things go much more quickly. We soon branched out from our normal potato ammunition and threw some yogurt and pudding into the mix. Our first few shots missed, but we got some good ones in there. Craig also made a triumphant return, this time punching a hole straight through the target.

Emily closed off with a very nice bulls-eye, splattering pudding all over. That was the last of our hits - we only had three - and the only one to really splatter stuff on the board. On most shots, we pretty much just splattered the makeshift "road" to the construction site.

We closed off by talking a bit about our plans for the future. We all agree that the next meeting should be dedicated to just blowing stuff up, plain and simple. But what comes after that? Building radios? Steam-powered boats? Rocket planes? Speak up! We need your feedback!

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