Science Projects

Two physics projects from grade 9. Speed of sound with a whip (2024). I made a whip from rope, wood and duct tape, filmed its crack in slow motion, and measured the tip's position frame by frame to calculate its speed. The measured maximum was 182 m/s — but the crack was audible as a sonic boom, so the tip most likely broke the speed of sound (343 m/s) between frames. Spaghetti bridge (2024, 1st prize). We had to span 60 cm with a bridge built from 500 grams of spaghetti. The other teams' bridges carried between 0.5 and 4 kg, our teacher's held 5 kg — ours won with 15 kg, and also took the weight-to-load ratio and best-looking-bridge categories.