Cornell Xraise

Electric circuits are in nearly every appliance and electronic device we own. New technology incorporates circuits that are smaller and more sophisticated than ever before. Students will engage in a hands-on exploration of basic electrical circuits and discover how electricity makes different components work! No more reservations about resistors, stop feeling squeamish about switches, and end your loathing of LEDs. Students will design their own circuits, make a Morse-code machine, and challenge themselves to create a laser light show that will awe any audience.

When light hits the surface of a solar panel, it causes electrons in the solar panel material to start flowing. This flow of electrons (electricity) can be used to produce work; you can turn on a lightbulb, a motor, or anything else that uses electricity. In these activities and demonstrations, students will test different ways to maximize the flow of electrons in a solar panel. They will use this knowledge to design a solar bug that performs really a variety of tasks!

Electromagnets are part of our day to day world. Anytime you use a piece of electronics, you are most likely putting an electromagnet to use. With this set of demonstrations and activities, your students can explore the world of electromagnetic phenomena and get excited when designing their own loudspeaker that they can plug to their phone!

Electromagnets are part of our day to day world. Anytime you use a piece of electronics, you are most likely putting an electromagnet to use. With this set of demonstrations and activities, your students can explore the world of electromagnetic phenomena and get excited when designing their own loudspeaker that they can plug to their phone!

The Sol Cycle is a miniature, 3D-printable bicycle that uses solar power to run a small motor that turns the wheels. We cover three broad subjects in this lesson: renewable energy (solar), physics (including speed, distance, Ohm's law), and engineering design (3D modeling and printing). This lesson plan can be tailored to your needs and the interests of your students. The goal is to involve the students as much as possible -- to have them learn science by doing, rather than hearing about it. If there is only time for one 45-60 minute lesson, the Sol Cycles should be preprinted and pre-assembled ahead of time. There is also room for more in-depth lessons on basic CAD design using Tinkercad, a free online software developed by Autodesk, and 3D-printing. The Sol Cycle emerged out of a cross-country bicycle trip taken by Elizabeth Case and Rachel WoodsRobinson in the spring and summer of 2015. As two female scientists, they designed the Sol Cycle to be a hands-on, creative and engaging science demonstration for students aged 4-14. Find out more about the original trip at www.cycleforscience.org

Topographic imaging at the molecular level involves an indirect mapping of the surface of a material with a probe that follows the shape of the surface. In this activity, each team of students will use a simulated topographic scanner with a platform mounted LASER probe to attempt to discern the structure of an unknown block of Legos® built by another team. At the conclusion of this activity, students will be asked to apply the knowledge gained to develop an understanding of the atomic force microscope.

Students perform a series of guided activities that illustrate the basic workings of a radio telescope. The activities focus on two aspects of a radio telescope: 1) the relationship between the size and curvature of the dish and the signal intensity 2) the analysis of individual signals.

Properties of electric circuits such as current, potential, resistance and the relationships among them are often taught using a water analogy. Water circuits provide an excellent comparison to simple electric circuits, but few students have experience with fluid dynamics. This lab allows a hands-on investigation of water flow: including current, pressure and resistance, in series and parallel arrangements, which can be related to electric current, potential and electric resistance.

This is actually two labs that work very well in combination. In the first, students investigate the relationships among color, frequency, energy, and wavelength of light using spectroscopes, colored LEDs, phosphorescent, and fluorescent materials. They observe characteristics, measure wavelengths, and observe and calculate photon energies.

The second lab has students investigate the conversion of electrical energy into light and vice versa. It uses electrical measurements on super-bight LEDs to determine the energy of various frequencies (colors) of light By graphically comparing the energy lost per electron with the frequency of the emitted light for several LED colors, students estimate Plank's constant, a fundamental value in quantum mechanics.

The diffraction and interference of light are easily observed phenomena that give direct, tangible evidence of the wave nature of light. Diffraction is at the root of many technologies, scientific techniques, and common visual phenomena. Students explore diffraction phenomena by shining a laser at a hair, a variable single slit made from pencils, and wire meshes of various size. After this introduction to the general principles of diffraction of light, students will use an ICE DNA Transform slide to develop an understanding of the use of light diffraction in the discovery the structure of DNA.

This tutorial/lab leads students through a series of readings and experiments to develop an understanding of voltage, current, and resistance, how simple circuits are diagrammed and wired, and how voltmeters and ammeters are used. The students collect and graphically analyze voltage and current data for a resistor in a simple series circuit. As the students interpret their graphs, they ‘discover’ Ohm’s Law. The final phase of the experiment asks the students to test their understanding of the concepts in the lab by determining the resistance of a resistor which is unknown to them.

Students determine the direction of the magnetic force on the wire, allowing them an opportunity to experience the right-hand rule. Students also determine the relationship between the length of the current-carrying wire in the magnetic field and magnetic force and between the current in the wire and the magnetic force. Students gain valuable experience in gathering data, calculations, graphing and graphical interpretation. Optional extension activities include exploring the effect of the angle between the current and the field and mapping the magnetic field in space.

Students use their observations of water waves in a ripple tank constructed from common materials to develop an understanding of reflection, refraction, and diffraction. Extensions are included that allow for quantitative measurement of these observations.

Thin films, like soap bubbles and oil slicks, owe their pretty colors to the process of thin film interference. Anodized Titanium, Scandium, Niobium, and Tantalum also exhibit lovely coloration due to thin film interference associated with the oxide film anodizing creates. These are so lovely, in fact, that they are sometimes used to make jewelry! In this activity, each team of students will observe a sampling of thin films. They will then anodize a small sample of titanium to observe the nature of the electrochemical reaction (anodizing), TiO2 thin film interference, and the relationship between the thickness of the TiO2 film formed and the color seen on the metal. Future modules are planned for this experiment, which will add specific quantitative examination of the thin films observed here.

This experiment is designed to develop the student’s understanding of resonance. Students explore the conditions needed to establish standing waves on a string and discover the relationship between nodes and antinodes for different resonant modes. Students also determine the relationship between frequency and wavelength for a fixed length of string.

Students will learn what transformers are and how to construct one, analyze what factors affect the power loss of a transmission line, and explore some of the differences between AC and DC electricity.

A series of guided activities that will illustrate various mathematical relationships seen in a standard physics course of study. Students will collect data and use EXCEL to create scatter graph

In this lab students will investigate a basic and important simple electric circuit and show how it can be used to model nerve conduction. They will use Ohm's law to predict voltage and current flow in a simple voltage divider. Students will build a model electrical cable using a series of voltage dividers and experiment with strategies to reduce current loss and voltage decay along the cable. Students will use the cable they build to show how the same strategies they discovered are used in nature to solve the very important problem of nerve conduction and appreciate how the cable model predicts problems associated with an important disease, Multiple Sclerosis.

Students are introduced to concepts of electrical energy and electrical current using a paper model. They construct simple circuits using inexpensive household items and explore their behavior. Next they extensively meter series and parallel circuits, calculate equivalent resistances, and extract laws for series and parallel circuits from their data. A series of questions leads students to consider energy transformations that occur in the electrical circuits they constructed.

A projectile motion lab is required for the NYS Regents Physics classroom and state standards require a qualitative and quantitative understanding of the horizontal and vertical displacements as a function of launch angle. In a fun and engaging way, students meet these standards with this lab. The lab apparatus consists of a launcher that includes three angle settings and a photogate placed to measure the initial launch velocity of the projectile. In Part I, the lab team will qualitatively experiment with a projectile motion simulation, working through the launch angle vs, dv and dh. In Part II, they calculate their car’s initial velocity from the photogate time and car length. After calculating the horizontal and vertical distances for the different launch angles, the lab team will attempt to hit a landing pad and have their car fly through the dreaded “Ring of Fire.”

When rock climbing, anchors are used to guide and support a rope attached to the climber. It is critical to set up anchors so that in the event of a fall, the forces generated on the anchor will not cause it to fail. Students design and optimize various anchor systems to support a “climber” represented by a 10 N weight.

Students measure the voltage across a copper resistor and a superconductor starting at room temperature and at intervals cooling down to approximately 77K. The temperature is controlled by varying the amount of thermal contact with liquid nitrogen. By graphing their results, the students see the effect of temperature on the resistance of a “normal” conductor, and the radically different effect on a superconductor. The lab ends with a demonstration of the Meissner Effect, a superconducting classic!

Cosmic rays are not really rays; they are subatomic particles that are found in space that have high energies as a result of their rapid motion. Cosmic rays are streams of positively charged nuclei, mainly those of the hydrogen atom. Cosmic rays may also contain electrons, protons, gamma rays, positrons and neutrinos. Positively charged helium nuclei are referred to as alpha rays and streams of high-energy electrons are referred to as beta rays. These rays filter through the earth’s atmosphere and can be studied using special detectors. Today we will be building a Cloud Chamber, which will help us to study these exotic particles from the far reaches of outer space.

The oscilloscope is a versatile and heavily used measuring instrument in science, engineering, and industry. It earns this status because it neatly provides an instant graph of how the voltage of a signal varies as a function of time or as a function of a second signal. It also allows easy comparison of separate signals. This lab will provide an introduction to the basic operation of a ‘scope.’ An examination of AC and DC voltages, of various waveforms, and of other phenomena will provide a useful means to that end.

This series of six station activities introduces the physics of transmitting "voice" information using electromagnetic signals or light. Students explore how light can be modulated to encode voice information using a simple version of Bell's original photophone. They observe the decrease of the intensity of open-air signals by increasing the distance between source and receiver, and learn the advantage of using materials with different indices of refraction to manipulate and guide light signals. Students are introduced to the concept of bandwidth by using two different wavelengths of light to send two signals at the same time. Finally, students explore how optical signals are manipulated in a photonic chip.

Students perform a series of guided activities that illustrate how microscopic and macroscopic features of metals relate to resistance and current flow. Activities include: thermal considerations of resistance, electron drift under an applied voltage, the effect of defects on resistivity, and the effect of length and cross-sectional area on resistance.

Students will use inquiry with electrostatic experimentation along with a qualitative investigation of the electrostatic forces.

Of all physical phenomena, the simple pendulum is perhaps the best suited to introduce students to the concept that the natural world can be described in a mathematical language and provides an entry point into conceptual, analytic and experimental techniques. The double pendulum is a system that behaves exactly like the simple pendulum for small amplitudes but is chaotic for larger amplitudes providing students with an introduction to the fascinating ideas about chaos theory while tying it closely to concepts and techniques taught at the Regents Physics level.

The guitar is one of the most common instruments in contemporary music. There are several aspects of the guitar that can be used to teach basic physics concepts; this lab focuses on magnetic pickups in an electric guitar. Students are led through a series of explorations to build experience with basic concepts in magnetism and electromagnetism. At the end they are asked to put these concepts together to explain how an electric guitar works.

Students will measure the speed of light while developing familiarity with some basic optics and electronics components such as a beam-splitter, photodiode, Fresnel lens, and oscilloscope.

Students develop an understanding of how photovoltaic solar cells work. They calculate the IV characteristics for the cell, measure the peak power produced as a function of a load resistor, and calculate the efficiency of the solar cell.

One of the most fundamental principles of physics is the law of conservation of energy. Regardless of its form, energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can, however, be converted from one form to another. In this lab, electrical energy is converted to light and internal energy (heat), and light is converted into heat. This experiment will examine the specific energy conversions mentioned above.

This lab uses Foutan Circuit Boards, consisting of a battery and a network of switches and light bulbs, to help students explore the structure and behavior of series, parallel, and compound circuits. They are asked to predict the switch positions on a picture of the board which would be needed to light certain bulbs, and then they test their predictions by using the Foutan Board.

There are many misconceptions for students in the world of Physics and one of the most common is the relationship between weight and mass. Throughout a student’s high school science courses, the terms, Mass and Weight, are used by educators without regard to their actual conceptual meanings and the two become a “gray” area in the students’ mind. This confusion between Weight and Mass is carried with the student throughout high school until he or she enrolls in a Physics course, where the distinction is made between the two terms. In this lab, the student will determine the Mass of objects utilizing three different methods without the conventional “weighing” technique that is the usual protocol for finding Mass in the Physics classroom. Using Newton’s 1st and 2nd Laws, the Mass of the object(s) will be found by student experiment, rather than using a Newton scale. As a 4th exercise, students will use a hands-on technique to conceptualize Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation.