Better Batteries

In technology we learned people are in a race. A race to find the best battery. “Why not just keep the batteries we have?” You may wonder, well its because we want a battery that has less of a bad impact on Earth, but also a safe one. Some batteries will set fire when poked through, and are very dangerous to try to poke and cut. We want safe, good for the environment, and powerful batteries, but that’s hard to deliver. Will we ever get the perfect battery? What do you think?

Electroscope

You might be wondering, what the heck is an electroscope anyway? Well its an experiment you can make at home! Take a clear glass, cut out a piece of cardboard to be the size of the top of the glass. Cut a slit to the middle of the circle of cardboard. Get a paper clip and a piece of tinfoil, as well as a ballon. Take the paper clip and bend it so that only the inside loop is left. Fold over the tinfoil so that there are two layers. Cut the tinfoil to make it look like a teardrop, about the size of your thumb. Take the loop part of the paper clip, and string the two pieces of tinfoil onto the loop. Slide the paper clip into the cardboard slit. Tape the cardboard onto the cup so that the tinfoil is on the inside. Make sure the tinfoil isn’t touching the sides of the cup. Blow up your ballon and rub it onto your hair or a piece of cloth. Put the ballon close to the paper clip piece that isn’t under the cardboard. What happened?

My Crank

As you might know, I recently made a cam. This week, I made a crank. Similar to the cam, by turning a wheel on the side, I could move the follower. The follower is the thing on the top of the mechanism that you are making move. Cams move the follower up and down, however the crank moves the follower in a circular motion. I made the follower look like a hand so it looks like its waving!

My Cam

In technology, we made a cam. No, I don’t mean a camera, I mean a cam mechanism. The cam I made had on shape, which spins and you put a follower on top. When the shape spins it causes the follower to go up and down, and look as though the follower is doing an action. I put a drawing of my dog on top. I really enjoyed making the cam, it was a lot of fun!

Catapult

Catapults are weapons, as you probably know, but they are also levers. Catapults are class one levers, and we made small ones in class. There wee two different options of catapults to build. The one I made used rubber bands and popsicle sticks as the base, and a bottle cap for the bucket. My catapult worked well (In my opinion) and it was really cool!

Trust The Trusses

I recently did a blog on I beams, and now I am going to do a blog on trusses, which are usually made from I beams. Trusses are triangular supports that support things like bridges. They are triangles because triangles are the strongest shape. They do not bend or break under pressure. That’s why you should trust the trusses.

I Beams

If you look around, you will probably see an I beam. I beams are the strongest beams. They are called I beams because they are shaped like an I. If you took a walk in the city, you would see plenty of I beams. We did an experiment with I beams where you took an I beam you make out of cardboard and see how many cans it can hold. We also made a custom beam out of cardboard to see the difference. The I beam could hold six cans full of food!!! The custom beam could only hold one. I beams are one tough cookie!!!

What Does Ductile Mean?

Do you want to know the answer to this question? If you are then read this blog! In technology we learned what it means if something is ductile. If I had a material that is ductile, with machines I can stretch it past the line that I could with a brittle material. If something is brittle, I can stretch it a certain amount, and then instead of stretching, it will snap.

Adhesives

In technology, we learned about adhesives! (Glues) And they are much more complex than you may think. Some glues, like super glue, harden faster in water. Some like Elmers glue harden more slowly when in water. The same rules apply for when it is humid. The first example of an adhesive was when cave people used a mixture of animal skin to preserve cave paintings. I think that all of this information about adhesives was quite intersecting, and a lot of fun to learn!

Final Project

The picture above is my final computer tech project. In the code I ask questions about science. Specifically the metric system, which we learned a little while ago in science. To do these multiple choice questions, I had to do a series of symbols. Once I did it a few times, I kind of remembered what code to do. I wanted to be able to check if they got it correct or incorrect, but I couldn’t, so instead I just put the answer.