Science Club

So what is science club? How do students join? What do they do? etc.

Currently, I run science club during lunch time on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  We gather in the kitchen and eat lunch. After that we come over to the science room for about 30 min.

Students do not have to formally "join." Anyone is welcome and a student can come to some meetings and skip others.

The activities come from students suggestions. Currently we are building table top trebuchets.  Imagine medieval enactments with "Plague infected grapes" flying across your living room.  Everyone who wants to build one will have the chance. We owe a big thanks Christopher Barbeau for volunteering to cut the wood for 40 trebuchets!!!

The Trebuchet project can be much bigger than these table top versions. I'm suggesting that we plan to participate in the 2013 Pumpkin Chuckin contest in Lake Orion MI.  The last few years they have added a youth category where the goal is accuracy rather than range. This is good since the Trebucets were getting very large and difficult for kids to handle.

 My thought after we build the table top versions we move on to a floor size one.  For that one I'm suggesting that we use a computer program called A-Treb to design a mid sized version.  Once we like the design we build it and compare the results to our model predictions.  I will need help with building and with computer model optimization.  if we are going to have as much fun as possible at lease some of this will need to take place outside of school.

The A-Treb program is very capable but it does have limitations.  A parent, Trinh Pham, has offered to arrange some tutoring for me and some students with the AutoCad. The options are very exciting at this time.