PHYSICS-IN-ACTION
FOR PREP STUDENTS AT BELS
The current Prep-year students entered the world of
practical physics with two days of hands-on activities
that culminated in the presentation of their Rube
Goldberg Machines in January 2016.
For those of you who are not familiar with Rube
Goldberg and his awesome machine designs, please
have a look at the drawing below to see how a system
can be engineered to be an interesting conglomeration
of intricately connected simple machines that work
together to perform a simple task, such as the “frying
of an egg”, in an ‘over-the-top’ application of Physics.
A practical demonstration with accompanying
commentary was evaluated on the 16th of January
2016, with amazing results…! Leading up to the big
Rube Goldberg Day, all Prep students participated
in a fun-filled skill’s-development workshop at BELS.
During the workshop, they moved from one workstation
to the next, performing investigations and
hands-on activities that provided much needed
practice for using hand-tools and stimulating creative
thinking, all with “Science in Action” in mind.
PHYSICS
DEPARTMENT
The BELS 2015/2016 Prep students designed and
constructed mechanisms that were to incorporate six
simple machines with the aim to “Pop a Balloon”. The
design-brief required an execution time of 2minutes
before the balloon was actually popped.
Here are some of the activities and students in action:
Using a chemical reaction as a stimulus and process to
produce a gas, Physics students experienced the link
between Physics and Chemistry while investigating
gas pressure, elasticity, and destructive testing. The
resultant gas was then tested and used as a fire
extinguisher and observing the effect of gas-densities
in a (practical) application of Science in Everyday Life.
Other work stations included an investigation of
friction of a vehicle on different surfaces, and also
experiments with heat, looking at expansion and
contraction by using hot water to move a cooked egg
into a glass bottle. The biggest challenge was to get
the egg out of the bottle afterwards though… :)
And what will an engineering challenge be without a
bridge-building competition…?
Hence, behold the creative process of building bridges:
THE CLAPPER 2015 - 2016 45