Certificate of Brain Usage

Joshua brought home his award certificate and ribbon. We were excessively proud of him.



His project has been moved to the fairgrounds. Judging for the city Science Fair will be this Wednesday. I will FINALLY get pictures of the entire setup then! I promise!! Really!!!

Electromagnet Coil Curiosity

Here, in Joshua's very own words, is the report that went with the experiment.

---

Electromagnet Coil Curiosity

2005 Science Fair Project, IdlewildElementary School

Experiment Performed by Joshua Merideth, Grade 4

Mrs. Gary, Science Teacher

Purpose
The purpose of this experiment is to discover if more or less coils of wire make an electromagnet stronger or weaker.

Title
The title is Electromagnet Coil Curiosity.

Hypothesis
My hypothesis is more coils of wire will make a stronger electromagnet.

Preparation
I made two electromagnets using carriage bolts, washers, wire, 6 volt lantern batteries and switches. One electromagnet was wrapped with 100 coils of white wire and the other was wrapped with 200 coils of red wire. I used two different colors of wire so I could tell which one had 100 coils and which one had 200 coils of wire.

I helped my Pop build a stand for the electromagnet because it would hold up the electromagnets and look attractive.

The Experiment
The experiment was made to see which electromagnet would pick up more steel nuts. First, I drew a chart. Then, I took a tray with steel nuts. Next, I lifted the tray up to the electromagnet. Then, I counted how many nuts it picked up and wrote it down. I repeated this four times for each electromagnet.

The Results
The number of nuts each electromagnet picked up are:

Trial	Red (200 Coils)	White (100 Coils)
1	53	30
2	47	31
3	63	24
4	43	28

I added up the number of nuts each electromagnet picked up and divided the total by four.

	Red (200 Coils)	White (100 Coils)
Total	206	113
Average	51.5	28.25

Conclusion
My hypothesis was right. More coils of wire made a stronger electromagnet. The red electromagnet was almost twice more stronger than the white electromagnet.

Q&A (as posed by Pop)

Why did you do the experiment four times? To make sure that the results were not accidents.

How did you make sure that having two different batteries would not affect the experiment? I made sure that having two different batteries would not affect my experiment because after two trials I switched the batteries around.

Why do more coils make a stronger electromagnet? More coils make a stronger electromagnet because every coil makes a small magnetic field, if you have enough of them close enough together it will be stronger.

References
HowStuffWorks.com
700 Science Experiments for Everybody

Science Fair 2005

So for the past two weeks, Joshua and I had been working on his Science Fair project. He wanted to do something with electromagnets, so I opened up 700 Science Experiments for Everybody and let him look at what they had in there. He thought the experiment to compare electromagnets with different numbers of coils sounded interesting.

As per what the book suggested, we built two electromagnets. One had 100 coils and the other 200. I am too embarrassed to describe what it was like trying to make electromagnets out of 12 gauge wire. We went back to Home Depot and got 20 gauge. BTW, the nice young woman at Home Depot named Morgan knows more about wire than I do. She suggested I use 20 gauge in the first place.

We also spent an inordinate amount of time building a stand to hold the two electromagnets. Thank you Mom and Dad for forcing me to learn basic carpentry!

Heh. I'd start cutting wood and Joshua would beg and beg to use the circular saw. One night, after we were finished with some drill work, he took the drill and some scrap boards into his bedroom just so he could practice drilling holes! We had many lessons on using a drill as a driver and he has become a competent assistant.

Joshua found a speed switch on the drill I had never noticed before. I showed him how to set the torque control.

Here are some pix:

Sixes, Sevens, Eights, and Nines

How do you teach your child the poetry of mathematics? This is the question that vexes me now. I lay part of blame directly at the feet of Joshua's third grade teacher, Mrs. Redus.

I thank the deities of your choice that Joshua has had many truly excellent teachers. Unfortunately, last year he had a teacher that was, er, straight out of my past!

At first, I thought her little quirks were rather harmless. For example, she kept the boys and girls segregated in the classroom. She even went as far as to prohibit boys and girls from playing together at recess. I even overlooked her "write the word you got wrong 100 times" mentality.

A few months after Joshua's third school year started he would come home complaining bitterly about Mrs. Redus. I became concerned when the complaints didn't stop. She was grinding him down and it was affecting his performance in school. Joshua resorted to faking illness to get out of school many times. I couldn't do anything to fix the problem.

I had to sit Joshua down and explain to him that there would be times in his life when he had to work with people he despised. This was one of them.

It was a bumpy year, but nothing a little home-schooling couldn't solve. To that end Joshua and I are concentrating on multiplying 6, 7, 8, and 9. And this is where I came in: How do you teach your child the poetry of mathematics?