dave pierson wrote:
Disclaimer: I know nothing about 'the system' at Science Fairs. Random thoughts: Would it be apropos to have two 'same size'/ different construction cap banks? Demonstrate (heating?) difference in loss?
Very much so... particularly if you could make some predictions ahead of time.. say you think that a high c, low L design will have lower/higher losses than a low c, high L. You can probably calculate the losses in the L from textbook math, so the real unknown is the capacitor losss.
You could build the cap and test it using an impedance bridge or similar (e.g. find a ham with a modern antenna analyzer to measure it, perhaps).
You could also estimate loss with a swept sine measurement of the LC and measure the Q.
Would it be apropos to DISprove something? NOT try for new physics, just my understanding, perhaps flawed, that any 'test' can (should?) also look for what is/may be disproven? (eg charge electrophorus, explore: It's AC: BUT there is DC 'portion' and books provide for point discharge rectifiers?)
Very much possible to do this. Set up a test with theory says should fail. What judges really like is when the experiment seems to work or fail because of some unforeseen complicating factor that wasn't considered, then, you identify the factor, and then it works as expected, once you've taken that into account.
The real key is predict, test, analyze. The fun of building is just to make the experimental apparatus.
Judges aren't all stick in the muds either.. some screwups which you identify and recover from (flaming capacitors?) are always a selling point, since they've been there, done that. Unless you're looking at 10-12th graders, when you start to want to see something that looks like a decent grad school project (at least at the larger county/state level)
personally, I hate the "I toiled on some small part of Professor X's cure for cancer" kinds of projects, but they DO present well (since the research funds usually run to professional quality poster presentations). I'd rather see the student come up with their own ideas and run their own show, rather than be a glorified lab-rat.
Or i maybe talking rot... New dwp: dave_p@xxxxxxxxxxx _______________________________________________ Tesla mailing list Tesla@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.pupman.com/mailman/listinfo/tesla
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