So, last Thursday and Friday, we had a great demonstration of some rockets, thanks to Steve Chrystall. Some of our visiting school students had made water rockets, and these were launched across our sports field at lunch time. There were some pretty impressive entries (both in terms of distance travelled and blowing-up on the launch […]
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Projectile trajectories
Just a quick entry since I haven’t done one this week. Since I got back from holiday (which was extended by a day by that pesky ash cloud) I’ve been busy marking exams and then helping with our major schools’ publicity event of the year, the Osborne Physics and Engineering Lectures. This year we’ve had […]
Continue readingWet house, dry house?
We’re looking for a new house at the moment. We’ve decided to be a lot more environmentally friendly and shift out of Cambridge and move to Hamilton to cut down the pesky commute in the mornings and evenings. We haven’t made much progress, though, with finding a house – what we’re looking for is in […]
Continue readingPaint
Question: What’s more tedious than watching paint dry? Answer: Waiting for a dry day so you can put the paint on in the first place. Or, to be closer to the truth, waiting for a dry day so that the guy you’ve hired to do the painting can get on and finish it. Getting the […]
Continue readingAnother weight-based challenge
About eighteen months ago I thought about the challenge invited by an airline’s policy on cabin baggage – forget the weight, if it’s smaller than a certain size you can take it on board. A similar challenge has been set by the company that collects my garden rubbish. I have a ‘green’ wheelie bin, which […]
Continue readingWood and water
It all started so well…A nice sunny Saturday, a good opportunity to get going on some of those jobs that you’ve put off for too long. So I put a final coat of paint on the door and, with that task out of the way, I decided to move to tackling the pergola that sits over […]
Continue readingElectricity from water – the exciting way
Forget conventional hydroelectric installations – if you want to have fun generating electricity in the lab then the completely static tin can and bucket generator is for you. They are all the rage at the moment – at least in our lab here, where we’ve sidetracked a student from his summer project into making one […]
Continue reading“It’s a rain forest, expect rain…”
So says an information board at the Aniwaniwa Visitor Centre at Waikaremoana in Te Urewera National Park. We know this well, so before heading down that way with the tent this weekend, we carefully checked the weather forecast. "Mostly fine, with occasional showers", it advised, and the nice weather charts indicated a high pressure area […]
Continue readingSink or swim?
Happy New Year to everyone. I’m back from holidays now – a nice week in Tongariro National Park and then a few days at the beach in Bay of Plenty (hoping there are no sharks out there). One of the disadvantages of living in NZ’s largest inland city is that it takes a special trip to […]
Continue readingAre cats smarter than dogs?
Alison has drawn my attention to this video showing a cat lapping milk in slow motion. The professor explains that the cat doesn’t scoop up the liquid like a dog would, but uses the tip of its tongue – the liquid adheres to the tongue and is drawn up in a thin column. The cat […]
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