Science Project on “Transfer of Energy”, Project Experiment Topics on Flight, Motion & Friction for Class 8, 9, 10 and 12 Students.

Transfer of Energy

Materials Required:

1. A section of wood, measuring about 10 cm wide and about 60 cm long
2. Five coins
3. A small coin
4. Two nails
5. A hammer
6. A small rubber band
7. Stapler
8. A thin cardboard
9. Scissors
10. Some smooth paper

Sir Isaac Newton, an eminent scientist, who was born in the year 1642 in England, had formulated his set of laws on motion. The first law from the set states that “an object at rest tends to remain in rest, while an object in motion tends to remain in motion.” There is a very famous experiment which proves this law very well. A playing card is placed on a cup, above which a coin is kept. Now the card is tapped off the cup and owing to this law, the coin which was earlier in rest tends to remain in that state. After the card has been blown off, the coin asserts to remain in its state and then falls down, owing to the force of gravity on it. Now that the functioning of the law is clear, we shall construct an experiment, where this Newtonian law will be demonstrated and it will also go to prove the transfer of energy from one object to another. Cut out a piece of smooth paper and fit it on the wooden board you have. Hammer in two nails, at around 7.5 cm apart from each other, midway into the wood. Make sure that a portion of the nail is sticking out of the wood (around 2.5 cm), giving it the look of a goal post in a football field. Attach a small rubber band around the two nails, making it look like a sling. Take a small cardboard strip of about 2.5 cm wide and 5 cm long and fold it into half, over the rubber band and join the cardboard ends together, with the help of a stapler. The rubber band should be pushed downwards, so that it touches the wooden base of the apparatus. Now at a distance of around 2.5 cm in front of the sling, place a coin, with its face up and after that is done, place another set of four coins over the first coin, but with their tails up.

As the rubber band is stretched, place a smaller coin in front of it, between the two nails. As you know, a stretched object like the rubber band in this case contains potential energy i.e. it has stored energy to do work. Now coming back to the experiment, the rubber band is released, so that it strikes the small coin, which in turn moves ahead and strikes the stack of coins up in front. The coin at the bottom flies off, but the other coins that are stacked up over it remain at rest, as they were before. They just drop down onto the board, owing to the force of gravity. There may be some mistakes in this experiment, as in the smaller coin, not hitting its object or hitting the wrong coin. To make sure that the right coin has been hit, all that you have to see is the side on which the coin has fallen. If the displaced coin shows heads, then you have hit the correct coin. This experiment definitely shows the existence of Newton’s first law of rest and motion and it also shows the conversion of one form of energy into another-in this case potential energy (stretched rubber band) into kinetic energy(the striking smaller coin). There is also another transfer of energy, when the smaller coin goes on to hit the stack of coins, thereby causing the lower most coin to fly off. The force of the smaller coin, hitting the larger ones should be great enough for the lower coin to overcome the friction of the stack. It should also be remembered that owing to Newton’s law, “objects in motion tend to remain in motion.” Therefore the coin that has been displaced, will keep travelling down the board, as long as friction does not make it stop.