9na (again) spent out last Science lesson making and launching rockets from our new piece of equipment - The Rocket Factory.

The students spent a lot of time designing their rockets and Rosie Killick even added a passenger to hers.  Congratulations to Francis Starrett on a time of 7.21 seconds and Samantha Scullion on a time of 7.06 seconds.  The rockets were timed from when they left the launch pad to when they hit the ground.  Mr Killen also helped out but found the process rather exhausting.

This is a great demonstration of hydrogen produced during the electrolysis of 2M sulfuric acid.

sulfuric-acid1

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The pupils of 9MCV built and tested their Mars landers this morning.  There were some interesting and well designed landers on display and congratulations to team ‘Mr Melon’ who succeeded in landing the egg safely on the ground with a flight time of  2.91 seconds.

It is again time for our Year 9 classes to design a Mars Lander.  Their task is to safely carry the raw egg to the ground from the top of the balcony.

There were varied designs and also varied successes, with some eggs surviving (and others not so successful).

Congratulations to team Jelly Babies who’s egg survived and took 3.86 seconds to touch down on the surface.

9na3 completed their Mars lander task with Kristian, Rosylyn, Jamila and Rosie gaining a narrow victory with a 2.70 second descent and an intact egg.  Others were not so lucky!

We tried this using a time-lapse camera.

timelapse

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In these videos, Michael and Aaron demonstrate the energy in food by blowing milk powder through a bunsen flame.

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food-2

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This involves the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide catalysed by potassium iodide.  Oxygen is produced and causes the mixture to foam and rise.  In the second clip, you will see the oxygen produced in the reaction relighting a glowing splint.

elephants-toothpaste

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elephants-toothpaste-21

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In this example of the thermit reaction, we used the same iron oxide/aluminium mix with magnesium fuse as before but in a fluted piece of filter paper.  The iron from the displacement reaction then dropped directly into the cold water and could be retrieved immediately.

thermit-2

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Polyox can be used to exemplify one of the properties of non-Newtonian fluids; i.e. elasticity.  When a solution of a suitable concentration is poured out of a beaker, the liquid will auto-siphon.

polyox

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