Tag: experiment

  • Accidental Science

    This week the Logan household has been performing science experiments. For example:

    • Two, full, dozen-egg expanded polystyrene cartons falling from a kitchen counter can break ten eggs, only three which can’t be recovered.
    • Dropping a glass from the bottom shelf of a kitchen cupboard onto a plate on the counter can break both glass and plate.

    What about you? Performed any “science experiments” lately?

  • Put ’em to Bed

    Children need sleep. Who would argue with it? But how many parents act as though the believe it? “Snooze or Lose,” an article at the online site for New York Magazine, reports how less sleep affects our kids:

    Dr. Avi Sadeh of Tel Aviv University is one of the authorities in the field. A couple of years ago, Sadeh sent 77 fourth-graders and sixth-graders home with randomly drawn instructions to either go to bed earlier or stay up later for three nights. Each child was given an actigraph (a wristwatchlike device that’s equivalent to a seismograph for sleep activity), which enabled Sadeh’s team to learn that the first group managed to get 30 minutes more sleep per night. The latter got 31 minutes less sleep.

    After the third night’s sleep, a researcher went to the school in the morning to test the children’s neurobiological functioning. The test they used is highly predictive of both achievement-test scores and how teachers will rate a child’s ability to maintain attention in class.

    […] The effect was indeed measurable and sizable. The performance gap caused by an hour’s difference in sleep was bigger than the normal gap between a fourth-grader and a sixth-grader. Which is another way of saying that a slightly sleepy sixth-grader will perform in class like a mere fourth-grader. A loss of one hour of sleep is equivalent to [the loss of] two years of cognitive maturation and development, Sadeh explains. [emphasis added]

    Wow! Go read “Snooze or Lose.”

    Hat tip: Guy Kawasaki.
  • The motor in action

    Here is a short video showing how to assemble and run the motor that Jamison and I made.

    Links to instructions on building the motor are here.

  • Success — The Electric Motor Works

    Electric motor

    As threatened earlier, Jamison and I built an electric motor. We used these plans with great success. Our first attempt electric motor failed because we didn’t have heavy enough magnet wire — 21 gauge works!

    Now to try one without a permanent magnet

  • Coke and Mentos

    Thanks to Eepy Bird, it’s time for a trip to Freddy’s.

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Brent Logan