Project Name/Description

Success Rate

Comments

Recommended?

Volunteer

Building a Telephone
Built telephone using soldering iron

Too difficult and took too much time

no

John Robinson and Dan Blech

Fossil Evolution
Hit a rock with a hammer?

It's not really a project...

no

Howard Kim

Disect an Owl Pellet

Kids (especially girls) did not like

no

Solar Car

It was ok, but not that exciting

no

Bottle Tornadoes
Bottles w/ connector & liquid

Cool to look at but not very educational

no

Karthik Ramanathan

Dissecting a shark

only lasted two days, messy

no

Winston

Crystal Radio
building a crystal radio from a kit -- just following directions

took a good amount of time; it worked but not really scientific method

no

Alice

Crystals
Grow crystals with powder (kit)

Only do it as a last resort -- It's fast and easy but not that scientific

no

Valerie

The Strength of the Naked Egg
testing the effects of vinegar, coke and orange juice on egg shells

this experiment simply didn't take long enough. It was interesting, but it's more of a one day time filling project

no

megan whittaker

Magnets
testing the relative strength of different magnets

not really an experiment. It was difficult to keep this kid interested in anything for very long

no

nicholas rosic

Slime Chemistry at Work
Work with the standard kit

Project not unique, and not complicated enough

no

Beth Dolinsky

Radio Signals
kit radio, kit motor

radio difficult, motor difficult, neither were completed

no

Ali Pruet

Radio Building
Soldering resistors (many!) onto a circuit board

Failed because soldering was difficult and there wasn't enough time to complete. Margin of error was also slim, which made working with student difficult if project was to work.

no

Collin May

Solar Energy Kit
Various projects involving work with solar energy

Failed because did not include many necessary items and the volunteer and student had difficulty finding enough sunlight to try anything out.

no

Daniel Kim

Solar Car
Solar car kit

Did not work because the sun is not strong enough to get the car running. Only way to make it work is if you use a high powered light bulb.

no

Matthew Greenblatt
Andrew Hung

Rocket (BANNED)
Building rocket and launching

Successful because the volunteer supplemented this project with activities on how rockets work, etc. This should not be done by weak volunteer/students however as it is slightly dangerous.

no

Carl Hungerford

Building A Telephone
Soldering resistors onto a circuit board

Failed because soldering was a difficult task and student didn't have patience. Only benefit for the student was he learned to solder

no

Andrew Hung

Infrared Robot
A robot was built and the time constraints did not permit the conduction of any experimentation. Soldering and troubleshooting wasted a lot of time.

Failed because soldering was a difficult task and student didn't have patience. Only benefit for the student was he learned to solder

no

Colin Dawson

Volcano Kit
Making a volcano from a kit.

No scientific method involved. It's more an arts and crafts project.

no

Frank Attenello

Battery-powered airplanes (kit)
From Nasco… comes with battery charger pack

Planes from the kit are made of styrophone and breaks very easily on landing. Motor doesn't even work.

no

Andrew Hung

Building motor/mouse cars (kit)
Built a mousetrap and motor car.

The mousetrap car was impossible to build (never do in smart!!!). The motor one wasn't that bad to build, but the entire project was kind of unsuccessful due to the difficulty of the mousetrap car. You couldn;t really race the cars properly or make adjustments to them according to the hypotheses.

no

Huiwon Choi

Building motor/mouse cars (kit)
Built a mousetrap and motor car.

mouse trap car kits were faulty.

no

Claire Kenny

Science of Scent
The group used a kit with different floral extracts to mix/make different fragrances. They then asked people what they thought about these fragrances and how they made them feel when they smelt them.

A hard project to make "scientific".

no

Siddharth Sivaprakasam

Bridges--triangle or square design
Building bridges with popsicle sticks & comparing strengths of triangle or square design

this ended up being ok, although the stated problem of the relative strength of triangles vs. squares was a bit complicated. we also had some trouble with the homemadeness of the project - difficulties getting the popsicle sticks to be the right size and getting them properly glued together

Maybe

Lindsey Powell

Rockit Robot
Kit

the kids really enjoyed this, although it was very much following directions from the box and not at all scientific.

no

Jennifer Wong