On February 7, 2014, the physical science classes at Pentucket Regional High School took a field trip to the Museum of Science in Boston, Massachusetts.
In the Fantastic Forces show, we saw many different cool things. We saw a magician's tablecloth, a pencil-gun, and the Newton's Cradle. The magician's tablecloth was when the woman who was doing the show for us, put dishes and glass cups on top of a tablecloth on a table. She stacked them on top of each other, and she even eventually filled the cups up with water. She explained to us that if she pulls the tablecloth fast enough out from under the dishes and glass cups, they dishes and cups will stay where they are and will not crash to the floor. She proved us right by experimenting with friction. With the pencil-gun, originally the woman just tried to stab a pencil through a block of wood with her arm. It obviously didn't work. Then, she took out the pencil-gun, and by force of acceleration by all the pressure in the pencil-gun, the pencil went right through the block of wood. Lastly, the woman showed us Newton's Cradle. Every one of us had already seen a Newton's Cradle, but this was a much bigger version. It dramatically demonstrated relations between force. If you pulled two of the bowling balls out, two would go in. If you brought 3 out, 3 would go back in. That's how force works.
Bobsled Activity
For the bobsled activity, I built a bobsled with Nick B. We made a bobsled hoping to get the fastest time, but unfortunately failed. We used a very soft silk that we were hoping would slide down very fast down the chute, and we also had 4 batteries in it to make the bobsled much heavier. Our sled ended up getting stuck at the top, and finally making it to the bottom at 4.85 seconds. Nick and I got the best record for slowest time of the bobsled, and we actually got our time on the boards. We named our bobsled "A&N" standing for "Adriana and Nick."
Lightning Show
The lightning show was very cool. I went to the Museum of Science in fourth grade for a field trip at Bagnall Elementary School, so this was my second time seeing the lightning show. My favorite parts were the lightning symphony where there was music with it and the lightning was loud. I learned a lot about lightning safety, and what to do if I am stuck in the situation where it is lightning out. I would recommend this show to anyone who is interested in severe weather such as lightning, because it's very interesting. The only thing I disliked about the show was that the lightning symphony thing wasn't longer. I also disliked the fact that the man running the show was only focused on the people in front of him, and didn't look around the room at anyone else. I was sitting with a group of people on the side because there was no more room, and whenever he was looking for volunteers, we all raised our hands wanting to go up, but he wouldn't even look over at us, so it wasn't very fair. Other than that, though, it was a great show.
Archimedean Excogitation Audiokinetic Sculpture
This was an art sculpture created by George Rhoads. It is 27 feet tall, and it illustrates that relationship between potential and kinetic energy. The sculpture uses a list of simple machines, including: the lever, the inclined plane, the screw, the pulley, the wheel and axel, and the wedge. There were many pool balls in the sculpture, all going different ways to get back to the bottom. They would all experience unique ways.
