Oil Drop Tubes

Fun project.
Looking at how viscosity affects the drop of a ball in a fixed tube.

Made two tubes, one with Glycerine and one with light oil.

A Stirling Job

Bought a Stirling Engine Kit, and its gorgeous.
Otherwise known as an 'LTD' engine, (Low Temperature Differential Engine)
Bit fiddly to build, but possibly the best set of instructions I've ever had for any model!

Speeeeed !

Measuring velocity and potential energy.

 

Biomes

Slight but very fun deviatiaion into other subjects.

I made a Pond Biome and a Moss Biome.
Both are sealed units so we'll see how they go :-)

Pond Bio is slowly clearing and it turns out I have a baby SWAN MUSSELL in there !
Also some Daphnia and other unknown wibbly gribbly things.

The Moss Bio has a few diff species of Moss and some landscaping that I couldnt resisist.

I also made a couple of Micro Moss Biomes, with a tiny amount of sand and substrate and a tiny amount of Star Moss.  I also added some micro lanscaping to those and they look ace :-)

Resonance Tubes

These are for measureing sound resonance at different lengths.
Cutting perspex tube is a pain in the a.....

Slippery Slope

Got a ramp built.
Will be using this for friction tests, car crash and acceleration experiments, and a host of other things.

Hovercraft

Building some model Hovercraft....

Some basic materials...

Make sure to let them dry well....

Blow up a balloon, add it to the drinks nozzle, and the air deflates underneath creating a cushion of air the CD can ride on..... 

UPDATE

The No more Nails failed !

Cant believe it, they all just fell off.

Now trying Superglue, and Strong PVA.

We'll see what works.....

Electroscope

Lesson learnt. Working with Gold Leaf is a total  #@!  of a job...

Needed to fix two Electroscopes.
There's a tiny piece of gold leaf about 2 atoms thick, glued at one end to a metal probe.
I had to cut new leaf and stick it to the probe. Its a nightmare to cut as it just tears.

Much swearing later, I got it done :-)

Wizzy Mixer

This thing heats and mixes liquids / chemicals by whizzing a metal bar around via Magnets underneath.
Its whizzer was stuck.
I fixed it.

Melting point kit

Fixed.

This thingy had glass and corrosion stuck in some VERY tiny tubes in a brass heating block.
Works a treat now :-)

Tested it afterwards and the heat got to 240oC.

Obviously I burnt myself on it. :-(
Here's a FLIR image to see the heat. It also shows the heat travelling up the thermometer.

Solar System Poster

How utterly amazing is this poster?

Earth-like Sytem

The Trappist System.

Couple of earthy types there!
Could life already be there?

Steam

Had to build a steam generator for a demo...