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Veho

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Illustrate the Coriolis effect.


Take a large circle cut out of cardboard. Put it on a turntable, so that it rotates. Take a marble dipped in ink. Either start it rolling yourself, or put a tiny guttered ramp on the board (say, one quarter of the radius from the centre) and place the marble on top. Secure it with a peg with a length of string attached. Spin the board, pull on the string to remove the peg, the marble will roll down the ramp and outward. This will show that the marble was rotating along with the board, and that it started off in a straight line towards the edge. Viewed from the outside, the marble will apear to move in a straight line, but the trail it leaves curves. Seen from the point of view of someone on the board (you can put a camera on the board and record the experiment from the rotating reference frame, that's sure to impress), it's as if some weird force is making the marble's trajectory curve to one side.

Now imagine the board is the Earth viewed from the North Pole, the marble is a cannon ball, an airplane or the wind, and the "force" making their trajectory curve is the Coriolis effect or Coriolis force.

Remember to mention the "draining sink" myth, and the fact it's only a myth.
 

FAST6191

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Most of my experiments are too dangerous for such an occasion (and you know when I am saying things are too dangerous....).

I suppose the main thing I wanted to say though was any fool can do a "Volcano, makeshift battery and a rocket" so if you must go with a "classic" then at least try and improve it or show methods by which to improve things).

On the flip side how about something that I have been playing with for years; find a bunch of household devices (DVD player, music machine, consoles, laptop.......) that run on 240VAC but then pull them apart and show how more than a few run on 12V DC or less (car battery or two in parallel if you want should provide more than enough amps to the damage) when it all comes down to it.
Add in some nice equations detailing transformer losses (hint: they are nearly all horribly inefficient) and with all the whale hugging going on at the moment you have got yourself an in, you could probably spin a rural areas/power cut sob story in there as well if you wanted.

Circuit boards with wires connected to them looks impressive apparently and it is easy enough to do (it is probably no more difficult than figuring out which way a battery goes in).

Bonus marks if you do something like:
http://web2.murraystate.edu/andy.batts/ps/powersupply.htm
 

Veho

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That's an interesting idea. And if you could measure and compare the wattage in both cases (if you can get a hold of enough multimeters), you could show the difference in power consumption. I bet it's larger than "turning off instead of leaving on 'standby'".
 

ProtoKun7

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I'm assuming a lemon-powered clock won't get much applause in this exhibition?
rolleyes.gif
 

ProtoKun7

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dinofan01 said:
Anyone else open this expecting it to be a topic on a temper that will go nameless for now.
ninja.gif
Nope. But you just lost the game.


Present the physics of "The Game" in the exhibition, that'll freak them out
ninja.gif
 

dinofan01

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PettingZoo said:
dinofan01 said:
Linkiboy said:
dinofan01 said:
Anyone else open this expecting it to be a topic on a temper that will go nameless for now.
ninja.gif
I did. And it isn't, therefore I am disappointed.
I think we all were.
glare.gif
Hover your mouse over the name to gain little insight :3
what name?
 

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