Whether it was a rocket, stained socks or crumpled spaghetti-marshmallow bridges, the Grade 5 Science Fair at Stettler Middle School displayed the young and inquisitive minds of its students with flair.
The annual science fair at Stettler Middle School filled the gymnasium with project after project as Grade 5 students showed off their work to their fellow students and the members of their families on Friday, March 27.
Natasha Smith and Evie Blake’s project, Textbooks versus Bridge, saw the two students build several types of bridges. The two students built two of arch, cantilever, truss, suspension and beam bridges, the first set out of wood products like wooden slats and dowels and the second set out of uncooked spaghetti and marshmallows.
The girls photographed their bridges throughout, as the next part of the test was to destroy the bridges by layering textbook after textbook on them, to see how much weight they could bear.
The arch bridges, both the wooden and the spaghetti one, bore the least amount of weight, something that surprised science teacher Rob Howell.
“I thought they’d stand up better,” he said. However, the lack of an anchor to the ground may have contributed to the collapse, he conceded.
The truss bridges held up the best, with the spaghetti bridge collapsing first. The girls actually ran out of text books on the wooden bridge without it collapsing, so one of the girls sat on it. After a moment, the bridge collapsed under her weight, not designed to stand up to a person.
Of all the bridges, the arch did the worst and the truss the best, but wood won in all cases except one, the cantilever bridge. Here, the spaghetti bridge actually withstood more weight than the more solidly wooden bridge.
Robert Leslie and Cody Bailey decided to test various types of vacuums on tile and carpeted floor to see which would perform the best. Scouring family, the boys managed to bring together a Dyson, Dynamic, Eureka and Swiffer-Vac for the tests.
The boys said they thought the Swiffer would do best on the tile floor, but it actually fared the worst, they noted. On carpet, they expected the Dyson to perform the best, but the Dynamic – which did best on tile and carpet – beat out the popular vacuum.
The best bang for the buck, though, was the Eureka, which did well in both the tile and carpet tests, though not as well as its more expensive counterparts. However, the results were comparable and at several hundred dollars less expensive, the vacuum was a winner.
Reid Coulthard and James McArthur’s tests involved some weapons, so their display was sealed up tight. The two boys used bows, arrows and and arrow tips to determine which would have the best penetration.
They used long and short field tips as well as adders, little metal attachments that go between the arrow shaft and tip.
The boys put a box with several sheets of corrugated cardboard in it in front of their target, and tried shooting from 20 feet and 29 feet. Some arrows stopped in the box, while others punched through to pierce the target behind.
Rotten food powered the exhibit of Garnet Kromm and Isaac Deaver, though because of odour problems, only photos graced the Garbage Gas display.
Using glass pepsi jars, balloons and lots of tape, the two boys tested out different types of food to see which made the most gas. In the end, apples won out as the gassiest vegetation.
Blueberries produced the least, with the balloon actually shrinking inward, the boys reported, while onion and lettuce both provided a lot of gas.
The vegetables and fruits decomposed at different rates, with lettuce gassing up on the second day, bananas on the third, and apples on the third.
Sometimes, the vegetation also produced water, which weighted down the balloons.
Though the boys did their best to make sure that none of the gas escaped the balloons, some did since, by the time the fair came around, the experiment was “really stinky,” they said.
More than 50 students participated in this year’s fair.