Science Sunday::"The Coanda Effect "

When this experiment showed up in my email box, I knew the boys would love it. And it is very, very simple!

Step 1
Put a candle behind a box and try to blow it out.
(it does not show in the picture, but James blew really, really hard to try and blow the candle out)


Step 2
Repeat the experiment, but this time use a round can.
(with no effort, the candle blew out)

"In the 1930’s Henri Marie Coanda discovered that a fluid (air is a fluid) has a
tendency to follow a curved surface."

For a complete explanation of this experiment,
you can visit Exploration Education's Newsletter for April.
(I don't want to break any copyright laws!)
                                                                                                                                                                                   
I am so glad that dad sat down with the boys to do this experiment. They applied the discoveries made with experiment in talking about car design, airplanes, how smoke could be blown through a fan to determine airflow around a model.... how computers have changed how things are designed... I have to say that the conversation was moving pretty fast and I was cooking, so I may be mixing things up a bit, but dad's enthusiasm was contagious!!


 Showing how water hugs the glass all the way around (like the air).

Science Sunday

Comments

  1. PattyApril 10, 2011 at 7:41 PM

    Very cool! I'll need to do this with mine.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownApril 11, 2011 at 3:13 AM

    What a great experiment!

    ReplyDelete
  3. PhyllisApril 11, 2011 at 5:46 AM

    That is a cool experiment...air is a liquid? I always thought it was a mixture of gasses. Perhaps it acts like a liquid?

    ReplyDelete
  4. TiciaApril 17, 2011 at 6:46 AM

    That is such a very cool experiment. Prepare to impress my kids!

    ReplyDelete
  5. PhyllisApril 26, 2011 at 5:17 PM

    I have learned so much from this that we are going to be doing a whole unit on fluid dynamics and we will be repeating this experiment as our introduction. Thank you so much!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Our Morning Time

Image
Look at me writing 2 posts so close together!! So... I have loved listening to the podcasts on morning time called "Your Morning Basket". I have listened to all of them. Very inspiring! They are all worthwhile to listen to, but I have to tell you that episode #2 with Andrew Pudewa is a game changer (in the homeschool sense). We have had our own variations on morning time in our house. When my girls were younger (they are now 31, 30, 28 and 22 years old), we had "seat work time" and "couch time". I'd say that couch time was our version of what is now being called morning time. For the most part, we read historical fiction, discussed history (I would either read from or discuss from a text), learned a little geography, read the bible, had prayer time, and had some pretty fun discussions. There was a transition when my now 28 year old became sort of a teachers helper for her younger sister. I remember working on art appreciation with her at the h...
Read more

Week in Review: February 1-5 2016

Image
Lots of baby care around here as the boys' big sister (our second daughter, Jessica) was having her fifth baby. It was a week full of sword fighting, cuddles, disney movies, books, and coloring. It's also been a week full of colds. The 2 year old twins had a cold, which I assume James caught from them (although every one in the world seems to have it, so not necessarily). The problem is that no matter how many times I caution the boys, who can resist cuddling with a sweet little toddler who does not feel well? I guess germs are meant to be shared. In the way of school, we have been in "keep up" mode. Paul's strongest focus is on his Dave Ramsey finance class (which I highly recommend), his Spanish class, and his economics course. http://www.daveramsey.com/store/search.ep?keyWords=homeschool http://www.livinglanguage.com/languagelab/spanish  (I cannot recommend this highly enough. The books and cds make it easy to open and go. Additionally, the...
Read more

Din-spiration Part 6

Image
This is sort of a lighthearted post, but I am going to start by saying that all those in Paris and the World are in my prayers. There are never words when something so unspeakable happens. As it has been pointed out, it happens far more often that we usually hear about in places that are more obscure to most of us. I'm going to continue with this planned post as most of us still have "normal life" to attend to and families to feed amidst this very stressful backdrop. To keep myself accountable, I was going to keep up posting about my crusade to eat at home. I have failed the last few weeks, but the resolve to eat at home has not! The great thing is that on the days when resolve wanes in me, my husband picks it up. He is often the one to encourage me that he can stop by and pick up an ingredient I forgot, or to step in and create a dish himself. He chose make us a Lasagna last week- for me, that is a more involved dinner than I will take on a week day. Rather than...
Read more