3
December 2004
Wanderings
Number 85
r_j_coppola@hotmail.com
SAS
Disclaimer
Come
join us on theWanderings
Chat Room. (See info and instructions.)
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While I was attending high school in a small rural farming community, during
the late 50’s and early 60’s, I had no idea that there
were such things as science fairs. It wasn’t until
1965 that I was able to visit my first fair in Huntsville, Alabama. I was blown away! I was jealous! Why couldn’t
I have had something like this available during my
school days?
Things
have not really improved that much during the 40 odd
years since my school days, as there are still school
districts in North America and, in fact, around the
globe where students do not have access to a local,
regional or national science fairs.
All is not lost. A group of concerned individuals in Regina,
Saskatchewan, founded, in 1999, The Canada Wide Virtual Science Fair,
a registered Canadian charitable non-profit corporation.
This Internet based Virtual Science Fair gives Canadian
children from remote locations and small rural schools
the chance to compete equally with their urban peers.
Please see their Mission Statement.
They are archiving the best projects so that the public can
see what these kids have been working on.
Even though The Canada Wide Virtual Science Fair is for Canadian
students, it should be used as a model by other organizations
(maybe SAS?
UNESCO?)
to open up the Science Fair experience to the global
community.
SAS
member, Jim Hannon, points us to David P. Anderson’s Robot Page featuring
his Segway like nBot
Balancing Robot.
Feel like owing a DIY Segway
clone? If so, then take a look at Trevor Blackwell’s Building a Balancing Scooter page.
He also offers a nice collection of other balancing
robot and scooter sites. Hey! There are even some
Lego constructions.
Do
any of you “old guys” remember the Smokey
Stover cartoon character? He
drove to fires in his two-wheel
fire truck that was known as the Foo Mobile. I wonder--could
this have been the inspiration of the Segway?
On 22 October 2004, the University
of Saskatchewan officially opened The Canadian Light Source Synchrotron Facility.
A
synchrotron acts like a gigantic microscope that generates
intense beams of brilliant light, millions of times
brighter than the sun, to view the microstructure
of materials.
“The Kyoto Protocol is not
enough to stem global warming,” warns a group of international
climate experts. On 8 Nov 2004, they issued one of
the most urgent warnings on climate change
to date. This could put new pressure on the US and
other nations to curb fossil-fuel emissions.
About
GlobalWarming.org is the web site of the Cooler Heads Coalition, a sub-group of the National Consumer
Coalition. The Cooler Heads Coalition was formed to
express their views that global warming is a myth
that is fuelled by flawed science.
A Lukewarm View of Global Warming by John L. Daly.
Climate
Change Education.org
is a growing resource dedicated to education on climate
change and global warming.
Could Mega
Engineering Projects be used to slow global
warming and climate change?
Global
Warming/Climate Change. Fact or fiction? Flawed
science? For a possible answer it might be a good idea to solicit
the opinion of the Inuit and other Arctic
dwellers.
An Overview of Victorian
Science.
During the nineteenth century "natural philosophy"
and "natural history" evolved into "science."
The KEGG: Kyoto
Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes is a bioinformatics resource with the goal of forming
a complete computer representation of the cell and
organism.
Fermilab’s
The
Amateur Magnet Builder's Handbook is not really
“amateur” in our sense of the word.
The American Physical
Society,
founded in 1899, states that their mission is to advance
and diffuse the knowledge of physics.
Steve's aquarium and Craig Reynolds’s Boids are both
Java based flocking demos.
The
term "Artificial Life" is used to describe
research into human-made systems that possess some
of the essential properties of life. Learn more on
the International
Society of Artificial Life’s web site.
Asteroid
1997 XF11
will make a close Earth approach on 26 October 2028.
Also, see Space
Watch’s web site.
The Engineer
Girl web site is devoted to encouraging young women to consider entering
the various engineering fields.
The
Committee on the Status of Women in Physics (CSWP) was founded in 1972 to address the encouragement
and career development of women physicists.
This
French DIY site
offers some nice examples of hands-on projects for
the middle school and younger student. Enter the URL
http://cm1cm2.ceyreste.free.fr/index.html
into Google or Babblefish
for a French to English translation. You should try
both, as each give a different translation. C'est
la vie. 8-)
Here
is another “non-English” site. This DIY Science Project page
is presented in Japanese. But, by using the old adage
“a picture is worth a thousand words,” this site could
prove to be the “seed’ for many projects.
The
All Science Fair Projects web site contains a collection of science fair project ideas complete with instructions.
The
results of The Water Rocket Challenge
2004 have been posted on The National Physical Laboratory (UK) web
site. Keep checking back for news of a possible 2005
contest.
Do
you want to get scientific with water rockets? If
so, have a look at Joseph M. Prusa’s Hydrodynamics of a Water
Rocket.
The
Argonne National Laboratory sponsors a Rube Goldberg Machine Contest.
Keep a watch for a possible 2005 contest.
Being
listed here does not constitute an endorsement by
SAS or me of any information, product or service.
Looking
for some unusual Christmas gift ideas? If so, the
Plantraco R/C’s
web site has an item of special interest. Their miniature
Desktop Rover ($59.95
CDN) is a computer controlled tracked vehicle. Check
it out! It looks like it would great fun to play (work)
with. While there, be sure to have a look at their
other items and R/C components.
The Discovery Channel
recently ran a segment on the Desktop Rover.
Take
a look at the Physics Humor
site and have a few chuckles.
Finally,
concrete proof! In
1964, the National
Science Foundation Polar Research Vessel, Eltanin, photographed an unusual object at a
depth of 4,100 meters (13,500 feet), positioned approximately
1,600 km (1,000 miles) south of Cape Horn. This object,
dubbed “The Eltanin Antenna,” appears
to be a pole rising from the ocean floor with twelve
spokes radiating from it, each ending in a sphere.
Some researchers are asking how was this device deployed
there. They go further and contend that the Eltanin Antenna is a piece of ancient
technology, or even technology that comes from another
world.
Or
is it? 8-) 
