Al Tobecksen [Richard Voc HS]
He brought in some carpenter's squares and had us work with a way of finding the hypotenuse of a right triangle using a square (90deg) and a yard-meter stick. He passed out a table a, b, c. and had us use the scale on the right angles for the sides, and the meter- yard stick as the hypotenuse: and then use a calculator.
F. J. Schaal [Lane Tech HS]
He was working with the Boy Scouts, and they had a egg and a bottle. They had the egg sucked into the bottle, and he was exploring ways of getting the egg out of the bottle, next week he as going to show us the bottle (if he could get the bottle from the Boy Scouts).
Lee Slick [Morgan Park HS]
He commented on the City of Chicago banning portable lasers. The school (Dr Vallas and the mayor) was talking about the use of lasers in education, but the law bans the use of ANY PORTABLE LASER. How can the objective of laser-education be met? Call a politician and relay to them how silly this law is. (it seems that laser gun sights are also banned.]
Bill Colson [Morgan Park HS]
He also expanded on laser anomalies.
He told a joke of a Y2K ["y" to "k"] solution where days changed
from "day" to "dak" ie, Mondak instead of Monday. Should the year 2000
would be more appropriate as Y2M, instead of Y2K??
Don Kanner [Lane Tech HS]
He brought back something that was done in the 70's. He hung a dry cleaner bag that was turned into a ribbon by nothing and twisting. He also had a FIRE EXTINGUISHER ready and a bucket of water to catch the drippings of the burning plastic rope. As it burned the drippings turned blue (better combustion) and made a sound as it fell. The pitch as estimated to be around 6-800 cps and as it fell the pitch increased. Another facet was that there seemed to be a strobe of the burning flame as it fell. The blue flame also seemed to be oscillating??? Why?? Doppler was not an issue since the falling flame was perpendicular to us??? It seems that a dry cleaner bag works best.
Bill Blunk [Joliet Central HS]
He brought in a toy sold at Science stores - Levitron.
It consists of a magnet top spun over a magnet that levitate the top
as long as it spins. Also showed why a device to spin the top is
available. It was hard to get to top spinning so that it could be
maneuvered to be over the bases magnet. After it is positioned by what
looked like a Petri dish, it would rotate held up by the magnetic
field.
Ann Brandon [Joliet West HS]
She brought in details about the AAPT high school physics Photo Contest (two categories "natural" and "contrived", with determination by committee) Photos [unmounted 8 x 10 inches] must be accompanied by a Paragraph (less than 250 words) describing the physics represented in the photo.
Second: AAPT Physics Video Contest VHS and either student or faculty categories Submission before 30 June 1999 to
Ann M.W. Brandon
1544 Edgewood Ave
Chicago Heights IL 60411
They will be judged at the summer AAPT meeting at San Antonio.
Betty Roombos [Gordon Tech HS]
She had recently received the PASCO motion sensor, sill like the polaroid camera focus sensor?? This is greatly better than the previous one. This has a greater range, and ability to capture the distance. She showed graphical motion of a "push and go" child's toy. The push and go was for totters and is quite sturdy. Exhibits a fairly even acceleration. It seems to be a good addition the store room.
Louis Harmon [ST Barbara HS]
She teaches at a girl's school, and has a small class and can do more advanced subjects. She showed a way of teaching addition of vectors (girls school - Jump ropes and a scooter {an item from the gym that has 4 wheels - maybe to drag equipment in the gym} someone sits on the wheels and with 2 jump ropes 90( are pulled so the resultant can be seen.) Another way of changing friction was to move around in the gym with shoes, socks, and barefoot.
General Comments battered around in final discussions:
Aug 24, 1999 is the only date given in the Nostradamus works. Check the
Internet. Carefully! What you would be expecting to be a key for
looking
on the internet, turned to be a phrase of soft porn. "poison Ivy".
Galileo's finger is housed in a vacuum bottle in a museum in Florence
Italy. Duct tape is useful in getting chewing gum off pants
If it wiggles it is BiologyPotentially interesting Web sites
If it smells it is Chemistry
If it doesn't work it is Physics