Sacred Heart High School (Fenham)

Jelly Baby wave

22nd November 2012

Sam Steventon, a STEM Ambassador, visited our club and showed the students the jelly baby wave. This activity uses two lengths of duct tape with skewers stuck between and jelly babies attached to either side of the skewers. When flicked at one end a transverse wave travels along the length.

Testing bullet proof composites

26th April 2012

We first examined what composites were and their uses in everyday life.

Common composites are GRP (Glass reinforced plastic) or fibre glass, carbon fibre and boron fibre as well as aramid fibre composites (kevlar), the latter are used in bullet proof garments.

The students were set the task to produce a cheap composite from a range of materials that was strong enough to withstand a mock bullet impact (in reality a clamp stand rod dropped down a piece of plastic pipe from 1 metre onto the test material.

Students had the option to use 1 sheet of real kevlar in their composite if they wished.

Watch this space for the results of the experiment….

Testing bullet proof composites

26th April 2012

The EGGSPERIMENT

21st December 2011

Students were given an hour to plan and engineer a method of protecting an egg from a 4 metre fall. From this height we calculated that an average egg would be travelling at around 20 mph! suffice to say an unprotected egg would almost certainly smash.

The students had to protect their egg with the minimum amount of protection (either wrapping or parachute) necessary to survive the fall intact.

There were some novel apporoaches to protecting the eggs!

Mr Bell dropped the engineered eggs from the school office roof.
Around 1/3 of the eggs survived!