- Newtons cradle (not) with superconductors and a vacuume
- 06 Nov 2017 10:48:36 pm
- Last edited by TheLastMillennial on 21 Feb 2018 09:39:19 pm; edited 1 time in total
I'm doing my schools science fair this year and I need to do something related to physics. After hurriedly coming up with an idea the day I needed one, I thought 'How much closer to physics can you get than newton's cradle?' (don't you dare say 'what about launching yourself out of a cannon?') I knew I needed something unique though and I thought back to last years science fair when a group made "quantum magnets" (which were really just superconductors). This gave me the idea of 'I'll just make a version of newton's cradle, but with superconductors!' But then I thought why stop there? why not REMOVE ALL THE FRICTION? So my next idea was to put them in a vacuum. I'll be measuring the efficiency of each of them. Yay, now you have my thought process of me getting into this.
So my project isn't going to be exactly like newton's cradle, but same concept. You roll a ball down an half circle, have it hit balls, have balls do physics stuff, last ball goes up the other side. (You can tell I'm in AP physics )
I'm going to have 4 half circles with surfaces made of 2 different materials. The first material will be just plywood or whatever I can find. The second will have the superconductors. (one of each type will be out in the air, the others will be in the vacuum.) I made a very realistic picture of it here.
* the grey box represents the vacuum
* the brown half-circle represent wood
* the grey half-circles represent the superconductors
* the arrows are for showing which direction the ball will go
* the colors of the arrows are for fun.
Now, everything has been going swell up until now. What my problem is, is I'm not sure how I can easily reset the half-circles that are in the vacuum. I cant just remove the vacuum, reset it, and run the experiment, that'd take too long and wouldn't work. I was wondering what is the best approach to this issue? I have a few motors, some buttons, an Arduino Uno, a Raspberry Pi, and tons of LEGOs.
So my project isn't going to be exactly like newton's cradle, but same concept. You roll a ball down an half circle, have it hit balls, have balls do physics stuff, last ball goes up the other side. (You can tell I'm in AP physics )
I'm going to have 4 half circles with surfaces made of 2 different materials. The first material will be just plywood or whatever I can find. The second will have the superconductors. (one of each type will be out in the air, the others will be in the vacuum.) I made a very realistic picture of it here.
* the grey box represents the vacuum
* the brown half-circle represent wood
* the grey half-circles represent the superconductors
* the arrows are for showing which direction the ball will go
* the colors of the arrows are for fun.
Now, everything has been going swell up until now. What my problem is, is I'm not sure how I can easily reset the half-circles that are in the vacuum. I cant just remove the vacuum, reset it, and run the experiment, that'd take too long and wouldn't work. I was wondering what is the best approach to this issue? I have a few motors, some buttons, an Arduino Uno, a Raspberry Pi, and tons of LEGOs.