Tag Archives: csiro
CSIRO Toy Science
On Friday, we went to see the CSIRO science demonstration. The man had lots of toys, mostly old fashioned ones. Our job was to find out what made them work. Some were powered by strings, gravity, mirrors, magnets, and balance.
CSIRO Visit
Yesterday (Monday) S2S and S2H went to CSIRO in Miss Mealing’s classroom. It was all about weather and the atmosphere. Here are some of the things we learned:
- Air takes up space. Andy had to sit on a chair with a big black garbage bag, while Jason blew in it. Andy’s body moved because the bag was full of air. A student also put a tissue in a glass, in a big jug of water and over the top of a plastic ball. When he pushed the glass down, the air and the water pushed each other so the air stayed in the glass and the tissues didn’t get wet.
- Hot air expands and cold air contracts. Jason put a balloon over a empty coke bottle. When he put it in hot water, the air inside got hot and the ballooon expanded. When he put in the cold water again, the balloon went smaller (contracted). When the balloon got covered in liquid nitrogen (very cold) it went a lot smaller like a crunchy plastic bag. When Lamin blew warm air on it, it got bigger until it was normal sized.
- Jason made clouds in a jarby dropping matches (very dangerous!) in a jar and a little bit of water, and covering the lid with a glove. He pushed his hand in the glove making high pressure making no clouds, but when he pulled it out making low pressure, there were clouds.
- Air has weight but because it pushed up and down the pressure balances out. Jason did a karate chop on a ruler and it flew in the air. Then he covered one end with newspaper and squeezed the air out flat from underneath, and tried again. This time it broke because the air held the paper and ruler down.
- Jason poured liquid nitrogen on the floor. It was so cold it made clouds and fog spread across the floor.
- Finally Jason made a tea bag rocket. He emptied out the bag and made it into a cylinder, then lit a match on it and couted down. It made the air in the bag so hot that it learned how to fly! Hot air always rises.
CSIRO Visit
On Wednesday, we were lucky enough to have science lessons from Sam, from the CSIRO. We learned about force and movement. He started by getting two students on skateboards and they had to race without touching the floor. They had to push against the air, which was a gas, and that was harder than pushing against the floor. We saw that to go forward, you push backwards. This is Isaac Newtons discovery, that “every action has an equal and opposite reaction”.
We used balls, frisbees and a little hovercraft-ball to demonstrated friction. Things slid a little on the floor, more on wood or ice, and most on air! The hovercraft was cool because it floated on an air cushion and we could push it really far.
Sam had a record hanging on a string and when you would spin it, it would balance like a wheel on a bike, at whatever angle you started to spin it at (if you spun it fast enough). We tried to smack the record hard but if it was spinning, it wouldn’t touch the string – that is, until Mr H broke the string!!
Sam told us that the smallest person in the room would be able to lift him up – with the right machine. He showed us how to use a spoon as a lever to open a milo tin, because using just your hands would make you sweat and take for ages!. He said we had 3 fulcrum points to choose from. We tried the middle fulcrum point, but nobody got lifted.
The fulcrum point near Sam, and far away from our volunteer was the right one to choose. Even this tiny student was able to lift our lofty teacher!
Then Sam tried to lift her using the last fulcrum point. He must not have been very strong, because he couldn’t do it!
Sam tried to squash the balloon using lots of force, but the pressure was spread out.
He tried more force, but the pressure was still too spread out.
He said that if you used a nail, all the pressure would be in one spot on the balloon, so it would pop. Then he let us choose to pop it by sitting on a cushion made of 500 nails! And he sat on it! Lots of people were scared – just look at us covering our ears in the photo!
One boy sat on the nail chair, then his friend sat on him – but the pressure was still spread out, so nobody got a sore bottom from the nails!
There were lots activities to do our own. One of them was where we had to balance these birds on our nose or hand. Miss S. had to take her glasses off to do it, and then the bird fell off and hit her in the nose.
In this picture, Mr H was learning about gravity. He had two sticks and a ball, and had to manage to get the ball to roll upwards by pulling the sticks apart and together again. You can also see someone building a bridge which was held up by one special keystone block. If you took it out, the whole bridge would fall over!
If you pressed something into the back of the pinboard, and flipped it over, the shape will still show up in the pins.
Unfortunately, this was when my camera ran out of battery, so there’s no more photos, even though there were plenty more activities for us to enjoy. There was a metal spiral with a wheel that rolled up the inside, a sort of puzzle made out of glass with metal inside that locked it together until you spin it to unlock it, a board with some wooden cones that you pick up with bare hands but not with gloves, because of friction, and a pinball activity where you had to get the ball through a sort of maze.