You don't say what age you guys are or the grade in school, junior high
or high school? Hmmm, guess that would be a pop and flash demonstration
you'd be wanting?
1) How about taking a lawnmower engine, removing the cylinder head and
attach a large disc magnet with either the North or South pole to the
flat end of the piston. Wind a solenoidal coil so that the outside
diameter within the outer diameter of the magnet on the piston.
Insulate the coil and arrange for an optical or reed switch to sense
when the piston was just degrees past the coil, just beyond TDC (top
dead center). At that time, inject a high voltage into the coil which
will kick it downward. You'd have an electrically driven lawnmotor
engine.
2) One fellow claims he was getting something like 13 amps at 12vdc by
using a battery to generate hydrogen that was exploded in a lawnmower
engine which was connected to a generator and provided not only enough
power to produce the hydrogen but also about 100watts extra.
3) Build a gravity wave detector using the Hodowanec circuit. Check
out Bill Ramsays work with a chart recorder showing the amplitude and
frequency shifts. Bill also connected the output of his detector to a
VCO (voltage controlled oscillator) so you could hear the sound of the
changing gravity waves...sounds like whales mating. You could build two
or more, place them several miles apart, use PICS (tiny computers about
$30 each)) to sample the data over a period of a week to a month,
depending on how much memory you have and compare that data to show
variations in the gravity over a specified region, then correlate that
data with local events, weather, animal populations, number of crimes in
the area, etc. and look for anomalies that might be influenced by
gravity variations.
4) Duplicate the aura detector using a CCD as the image capture device
where the subject is stimulate by a Tesla coil with various frequencies
being injected into their body while the camera is sampling. You could
also possibly use a Kilner screen (glass doped with dicyanin dye), take
photos and run them through an image processor for contrast and other
enhancements.
5) Perfect for physics, build an inertial drive using a motor to drive
a sliding weight. The idea is to provide a uni-directional thrust as in
the Cook or Thornsen drive. David Cowlishaw also has a page on it, look
for G.I.T. his term for gyroscopic inertial thruster. The simplest
understanding is to use a flat wheel with a vertical axis. A spring
holds a weight up against the shaft. As the wheel spins around, let's
pick one point which will be the release point, say 270 degrees. With
the weight cocked against the spring with a locking arm next to the
shaft, when the wheel reaches 270 degrees, the locking arm releases, the
spring thrusts the weight outward from the shaft and the entire disc
platform jerks forward a small distance. As the wheel continues to
turn, the weight is reeled back in to recompress the spring and lock it
against the shaft. When the 270 degree point is reached, the locking
arm is again released, the spring thrusts the weight out to the edge and
causes the entire platform to jerk in that direction a small amount and
the cycle repeats. The idea that the device pushes against ITSELF
because of the sliding spring loaded weight. Its not overunity and is
grossly inefficient but it is unique and physics denies it will work.
Thornsen placed his in the bed of a canoe which achieved about 80 feet
per minute with nothing in the water to propel it. The ultimate test is
to suspend it from a rope and monitor deflection in the desired
direction from where the rope is normally hanging straight down. Now
figure out how to do this electronically and you have a space drive
since it is 'reactionless' and needs no medium to push against except
space itself by using inertia.
6) Another physics test might be to duplicate Don Kelly's gravity drop
experiments where he used mobius/caduceus coils inside identical boxes.
He dropped these boxes mechanically over a fixed distance to get the
average fall time. Then he connected a battery to the coil and noted
that THE BOXES FELL SLOWER when the circuit was powered. You could use
a pulse generator and compare many different arrangements. That would
blow them away if you take all precautions and use statistical averages
with as much reliable mechanical drop components and photo detectors to
be triggered to calculate fall times under different circumstances.
7) Tying in with this gravity drop experiment is the one by Japanese
experimenters where a gyro was dropped and found to fall SLOWER when it
was spinning CCW with respect to the earth, that is looking down on the
falling gyro, you would see it spinning to the left.
8) You could also do the sonoluminescence experiment using a piezo
crystal, fed at high intensity to create cavitation and a blue glow in
water. The details and parts sources are posted on the net though I
don't have the URL handy.
9) You could do acoustic levitation showing how mass can be trapped in
a standing wave to 'levitate'.
10) You could build a cymatics wave table, very simple, very cheap and
very fascinating...basically a vibrating plate, like a tympani drum or
thin sheet of metal, with sand or lycopodium powder on it. A speaker or
piezo transducer can be brought near the bottom or even attached (I
don't recommend attaching as it alters the true patterns). Feed the
speaker or piezo with a one or more frequencies through a power
amplifier and watch the complex geometries that result...totally
amazing...and the Russian scientist Ivanov claims by mixing frequencies
in a certain unspecified relationship you can create rotation,
undulation or standing waves.
11) You can go to an auto junkyard, rip out the fan motor for the
heater, usually a squirrel cage with a nozzle about 2" wide, power it
with 12vdc and throw a ping pong ball into it where it will float in the
air, entrained by the airflow...if the motor is hidden and people can't
actually see or hear the noise (not loud at all) they will be amazed at
what keeps a plastic ball suspended.
12) One of my favorite terribly simple yet enigmatic demonstrations is
the TOMI where you could make multiple ramps that feed into each other.
Drop in the cylinder roller and watch it roll up one ramp, then drop to
automatically feed into the 2nd ramp, where it rolls up ON ITS OWN, to
drop off and automatically feed into the 3rd ramp and on and on...it is
totally amazing to watch and cheap to do...and no current physics
explains it.
Perhaps these are either too simple, too complex or not what you had in
mind...you could always buy the time travel, antigravity or free energy
plans sold on so many sites and wow the world when yours actually
WORKS!..<g>....
If you need additional information, pick a project and let me know, I'll
get more information and pass it on to you...good luck!
S2000W@aol.com wrote:
>
> Hello, I'm new to this list. A friend and myself want to build some sort of
> electrical device for Physics class, and I thought maybe someone on this list
> could help us. It's not for an assignment but we just want to see what we
> can do, and I know our teacher would really appreciate this kind of interest.
> I was thinking of something along the lines of a Telsa Coil, Van der Graaf
> Generator, or plasma ball. But the thing is someone has already built a
> Tesla Coil, and my teacher already has a Van der Graaf Generator. Does
> anyone have any suggestions for a device along these lines? It doesn't need
> to be something that makes big sparks, but something that would be really
> interesting.
>
> I've been searching for a few days now, and the only things I can find are
> either too simple and directed at young kids, or incredibly complicated. I
> would appreciate any help.
>
> -Steve
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