Science Olympics

Being the year of the summer Olympics in Atlanta we at Science ALiVE! combined some of our activities into our super cool science Olympics 1996. The following four activities were used in our Olympics, but they can easily be modified to be single activities. The students were divided into groups of 4 and the winning team was decided according to score sheet below.

The points in the 1996 summer Olympics are awarded as follows:

Floating Pennies : If the team manage to float 1-8 pennies it will be awarded 1 point, 9-15 gives 2 points, 16-22 gives 3 points, 23-30 gives 4 points and above 30 gives 5 points.

Balloon Powered Boats : This activity has 2 parts. Maximum 3 points are awarded for distance and 2 points are awarded for design. Out of the 3 distance points, 3 is given to the boat that travelled the longest distance, 2 points are given to the second longest distance and 1 point is awarded to all the boats that actually travels a distance i.e. that moved. Creativity points are awarded by the instructors. This activity also have a bonus point that is awarded to the teams that build a successful retrieving device.

Pinnocchio Noses : A nose 0-30 cm is awarded 1 point, 30-50 cm gets 2 points, 50 cm-1m gets 3 points, 1m-1.5m gets 4 points and all noses above 1.5 m are awarded 5 points. Warning 1 point can be taken away if the nose consists of an excessive amount of tape.

Water Relay The team that has the largest volume of water in their bucket is awarded 5 points, second largest volume is awarded 4 points etc.

Team name : __________________ Team name : _________________

Floating Pennies __/5 Floating Pennies __/5

Pinnocchio Noses __/5 Pinnocchio Noses __/5

Balloon Powered Boats __/5 Balloon Powered Boats __/5

Water Relay __/5 Water Relay __/5

Total __/20 Total __/20

Team name : __________________ Team name : _________________

Floating Pennies __/5 Floating Pennies __/5

Pinnocchio Noses __/5 Pinnocchio Noses __/5

Balloon Powered Boats __/5 Balloon Powered Boats __/5

Water Relay __/5 Water Relay __/5

Total __/20 Total __/20

Penny Floaters

A) Objective: To demonstrate buoyancy.

B) Time: 20 min

C) Materials:

1. List of Materials:

a) Tinfoil squares (10 cm. x 10 cm.)

b) 50 Pennies

c) Ice cream buckets (one per Olympic team)

2. Material found at:

a) We purchase tinfoil from the grocery store.

b) Ice cream buckets donated to us from friends. Aluminium pie plates, or large bowls can be substituted for buckets.

3. Cost per student: negligible, pennies and tinfoil squares can be reused.

D) Theory: An object will float as long as the weight of the water that it displaces is equal to or larger than the weight of the object. In this activity the students find this out since the maximum number of pennies that you can float on tinfoil depends on how high the edges are i.e. how much water that the tin foil square displaces.

E) Procedure:

1. Give each team of 4 students a tinfoil square and about 25 pennies.

2. Tell them that the object is to balance as many pennies as possible without the tinfoil sinking and tell them how the points are awarded.

3. Give the groups 10 min. to test it out by the trial and error method.

4. After ten minutes test each floater while all groups are watching and award points.

5. Explain to the kids that they have just discovered buoyancy and explain what buoyancy is.

F) Safety: None.

G) Real Life Examples: Boats are designed to float on water even though the materials that the boats are made of are more dense than water. When building a ship, you have to take into account whether the ship is sailing in hot or cold water or in salt or fresh water. Water has different densities depending on temperature and salt content; thus, the same volume of displaced water weighs can weigh varying amounts and the weight that the boat can support will differ accordingly.

Pinnocchio Noses

A) Objective: To teach basic engineering skills on how to build string structures by allowing the students to become civil engineers. They must build the longest free hanging nose as possible. The nose must be attached to their head somehow and cant be directly supported anywhere except the head.

B) Time: 30 minutes.

C) Materials:

1. List of Materials:

a) Newspaper

b) masking tape

c) string

2. Materials found at:

a) Newspaper was donated to us from the SFU university newspaper (The

Peak). Try recycling depots, newspapers (The Sun), or collect newspaper

at home.

b) We purchased tape and string from a office supply store. Youll need a lot of tape and string, and it will be cheaper if you buy it in large quantities.

3. Cost per student: $0.20, tape and string must be purchased.

D) Theory: Civil Engineers are required to build structures which will be able to withstand large amounts of weight. While the structures that they build need to be strong, the materials that they use are not always strong, therefore, they must use several techniques to make the most of their materials. Examples are arches, braces, bundles, reinforcements, trusses, triangles and carefully planned weight distribution.

E) Procedure:

1) Students work in their Olympics team.

2) They have 20 minutes to build a free hanging structure that is attached to the head of a student and protrudes horizontally as far as possible.

3) The nose itself can not touch any part of the students body except the head. However, it may be supported by braces attached to knees or waist.

4) Judging is done at the end of an hour and the longest nose horizontally wins.

5) Points are awarded to each team as discussed above.

F) Safety: None

G) Real life examples: Bridges are usually built using many of the techniques mentioned above. Big buildings, like sports stadiums. usually have a roof made up of arches. The domes on Science world and BC Place are examples of this.

Balloon Powered Boats

A) Objective: To demonstrate Newtons third law by building boats powered by the theory of action-reaction.

B) Time: 40 minutes

C) Materials:

1. List of Materials:

a) Balloons

b) Straws

c) Goldberg supplies (see the Rube Goldberg write-up)

2. Materials found at:

a) promotional balloons are easily obtainable by donation (Zellers etc.) as are Goldberg supplies

3. Cost per student: negligible, unless supplies must be bought.

D) Theory: Newtons third law states that any force is countered by an equal and opposite force. In this activity, the force of the balloon deflating produces a force on the boat that drives the boat forward. Also, some theory of boat building is introduced. The importance of a keel or a rudder to make the boat go straight is discussed.

E) Procedure:

1) Introduce the task to the students, i.e. tell them that the goal is to build a boat that is powered by action-reaction.

2) Tell students that the points are awarded for distance travelled and for design as well as retrieving mechanism

3) Show them how to power the boats with the balloon and a straw.

3) Talk about the importance of a keel or a rudder

4) Give each team 20-25 minutes to construct their boats.

5) Take the whole group out to a pond and race the boats.

6) Award the points according to score sheet.

F) Safety: None.

G) Real life examples: Action- reaction can be seen if a person on skates throws a heavy object forward and actually move backwards.

Water Relay

A) Objective: This part of our Olympics was design mainly for the students to have fun with water. However, it does make use of air pressure and this could be stressed if activity is performed on its own.

B) Time: 20 min.

C) Materials:

1. List of Materials:

a) Plastic pop bottle with top cut off (one per Olympic team)

b) Graduated cylinder or other measuring device

c) Rope, or pylons for boundaries

d) Balloons

e) Plastic cups

2. Materials found at:

a) Graduated cylinder can be borrowed from a chemistry lab.

b) Promotional balloons and plastic cups are readily donated by stores and large companies.

3. Cost per student: negligible

D) Theory: The air inside the inflated balloon is pressing on the sides of the cup with a force large enough to lift the water filled cup.

E) Procedure:

1) Mark the relay distance with ropes or pylons.

2) Line up three members of each team at the one end and place a bucket of water at the same end.

3) The fourth member of each team lies down at the opposite end with a cut of pop-bottle or other jug on their forehead.

4) The object in this relay is to transport as much water as possible to the bottle. This can be done only by filling the cup up with water and then blow the balloon up as to lift the cup.

The first student then runs to the other side, carrying the water filled cup by holding on to the balloon, and pours the water into the bottle. Then the first student switches with the student lying on the ground and the student previously lying with the bottle on his/her head takes the cup, carries it back, using the balloon, to the team at the other side and passes it to his/her teammate next in line, and takes his/her spot last in line. This procedure is repeated for 10-15 minutes.

5) After 10-15 minutes, the instructor measures the volume in each teams bottle and awards the appropriate points on the score sheet.

F) Safety: Make sure that none of the students are barefoot so that they dont step on sharp objects on the field.