Bridge Building with Straws

Wednesday, 3rd July 2013 – Under the supervision of Janet Custard, who talked to us about Medical Scanners a year ago, 24 members threw themselves into the challenging practical task of building a bridge out of straws.

Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and particularly enjoyed the strawberry cream teas.

The bridges were tested (to destruction?) by Janet using standard weights and the winning team of Lucy Meadows and Geoff Siggins are pictured in studied amusement.

Lucy Meadows and Geoff Siggins built the best straw bridge

More photos in this gallery.

Crash Helmets for Eggs – results

Well, what a cracking afternoon we had. No sun to be seen in the sky, but Christine P, Sue W and Chris P reminded us it was the middle of summer by serving up delicious strawberry cream teas.

Twelve teams entered the contest, with many of them using the “egg” theme for their name: Eggsacting, Eggstatic, Eggythump, Eggcentric, Eggbound, Ovum and Lincolnshire Poachers. After Patsy had explained the rules (see the other post), the teams chose their eggstraordinary names and selected their numbered eggs. With only 30 minutes to complete their designs, there

Scramble for materials

was a bit of a scramble for materials before they could set to work.

it’s all about cooperation!

It was clear that some teams had given serious thought to the task, and had even eggsperimented at home; they finished well within the allotted time.

One they prepared earlier???

Others were making full use of the time to perfect their construction.

Finally, the egg-timer ran out and all the packaged eggs were re-weighed.

Patsy then called the teams to order for the judging.

Tension mounts as the eggs are tested

The audience was getting eggstremely eggscited by now, as Patsy took each packaged egg in turn and dropped it from a standard height onto the hard floor.

Testing the “crash helmets”

The packages were then carefully unwrapped and eggsamined to check for broken eggs and, amazingly, 9 out of the 12 eggs were unbroken. As tensions rose to an eggscruciating level, the unbroken eggs were ranked in order of package weight…

…and the winners were… Sputnik!

Sputnik being weighed

Sputnik by name, and sputnik by design: of all the eggs which stayed intact after being dropped, the one protected by the lightest weight of packaging (just 10.62 grams) was that of Sydney May, Vera Horsley and Ann Parker. Their minimalist packaging was very effective, and the projecting straws certainly gave it the look of a satellite.

For the most artistic appearance, team Eggstatic, comprising Sue Abbott and Derrick Fewings and egged-on by Alf Rubery, came up with an almost eggstra-terrestrial sputnik-like design to beat the rest.

Eggstatic’s sputnik scored highly for artistic impression

Overall, an eggsellent afternoon!

(Hope you didn’t mind all the corny yolks!)

Crash Helmets for Eggs

Wednesday, 4th July 2012– Patsy Colvin is organising a meeting with a difference!

Egg Drop Fail – courtesy xkcd

For this year’s Summer Spectacular, we are running a special event where everyone can get involved. The general idea is to make some kind of “safety harness” or “crash helmet” using a variety of packaging materials that would allow an egg to be dropped, within its packaging, from a height without breaking on impact. Prizes for the winning pair!

All materials will be provided, but a pair of scissors might be useful 😉

Even if you don’t want to try your hand at this, you can still come along to cheer on the most inventive teams, or just enjoy the strawberry teas on a [hopefully] pleasant summer’s afternoon.

Simplified rules Choose a team name Use only the packaging material provided Packaged egg needs to be weighed before dropping Only one attempt at the drop All packaged eggs dropped from the same height You have 30 minutes to finish your packaging The aim is to use the least weight of packaging

Put it in your diary now, Wednesday, July 4th at 1.55pm – it should be a cracking afternoon!

Science & the Violin

5th October 2010: Gordon Hughes from Southport is a retired head of school science and a local musician.  Not only this but he makes his own musical instruments too.  What better a person could we have to take us through the application of scientific ideas to the design of the violin!