Activities
At CIPEC we strive to provide our members with stimulating and enriching activities that do more than provide temporary amusement. Our experiments are designed to provoke thought and enrich a student’s conceptual understanding of physics phenomena through hands-on experience. We believe that not only is this the best way to learn, but it also ingrains in students one of the most integral characteristics of a physicist, which is the never stop asking “why”.
Below is a list of the major activities that CIPEC and its members have completed so far. This list will continue to be updated as the year progresses.
(Date)-Matchbox Rocket
This activity used simple household items, such as a matchbox and a sheet of aluminium, to launch a projectile over 40 feet. Here's a video explaining the experiment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFyKgmnCF-8
Through this activity, students learnt the concepts of pressure, as well an application of Newton's third law.
(Date)-Paper Tower
This activity aimed to showcase the strength of paper. Students were asked to make a paper structure (atleast 1 foot off the ground) that was capable of supporting the weight of multiple textbooks. The following link provides an accurate idea of what was expected of the students.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeB5XhQ2FL4
However, students took this to the next level by creating not 1, but multiple paper structures that greatly increased the weight the tower was able to support. In fact, the number of textbooks we had initially brought for the activity proved to be insufficient as the towers surpassed our expectations!
(Date)-DC motor
In this activity, we explained the working behind a Simple DC motor, a topic all of us were familiar with. This video shows the construction of one such motor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsZCW34LktU
However, we decided to take it a step further: We challenged the students to build a complex motor. This required both application of ideas they had learned previously, as well as innovative thought in the actual design of the motor. The students gained a hands on appreciation for magnetism and mechanics, through this project.
