by Newswise – this fall when students visit local stem festival (fair theme on science, technology, engineering, and math), if the US Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory is invited to participate in this event, students will find that Argonne offers a fun activity to explore. stem Festivals: hydropower. When the flow of water moves machines to produce energy, you get HydropowerAnd this is something students can experience for themselves.
Students will select different types of turbine blades (circular, triangular, square, etc.) and attach the spinning device with magnets to a horizontal rod, which in turn is connected to a thread suspended in the air and a bowl. As water is pumped into the turbine, the blades spin and rotate the shaft, stretching the thread and forcing the bowl to move up or down. Depending on the shape of the spoons, the height from which the students pour, and the extra weight added to the cup, they will get different results.
“It was great to have fun with everyone. stem Festivals help connect communities and individual students with hands-on science. As people visit our table in different ways stem At the festivals, our new activity will impact thousands of students.” – Brandon Pope, Argonne stem Education Relations Coordinator
“It was great to have fun with everyone. stem Festivals help connect communities and individual students with hands-on science. As people visit our table in different ways stem At the festivals, our new activity will impact thousands of students.” – Brandon Pope, Argonne stem Education Relations Coordinator
After learning to operate the turbine, participants can take on an even greater challenge. Instead of pulling the cup, the turbine drives a motor that glows LED; To start the engine, the blades have to spin quickly, thus testing the skills of the participants.
Argonne intern Vanessa Garcia helped develop the new activity stem Festival by first creating a prototype and then further improving it while in the lab.
“It was originally designed to go home with instructions so people could make their own turbine out of cardboard,” Garcia said. ,“When we decided to make hydropower this year's activity, we took an in-house activity and developed it further. For example, instead of cardboard, which disintegrates after soaking in water, we do 3D printing.
Argonne officially launched the new hydropower business for the first time at Northern Illinois University (NIU) stem festival on Sept. 30 and the South Side Science Festival, hosted by the University of Chicago, also on Sept. 30. Both events proved popular with both youth and adult participants.
“It was great to see everyone having fun,” said Brandon Pope, Argonne's stem Education Relations Coordinator. Papi ran hydroelectric activities with Garcia at the South Side event. ,“stem Festivals help connect communities and individual students with hands-on science. As people visit our table in different ways stem At the festivals, our new activity will impact thousands of students.”
of argon Institutional Partnership Team Learns the consequences of these events in order to make small improvements to the activity. They will then make a video about it to train volunteers as well as a facilitator's guide. This will allow Argon to detect the event on the manifold stem festivals and more introduction Events throughout the year.
“We like to present different activities every year stem festivals for young people to explore and discover something new and relevant,” said Jessica Burgess, Argonne's. stem Education Partnerships and Outreach Manager. He started working NIUS stem festival and he was happy with the results. ,“The hydropower activity has moved well from a home project to something we can branch out into stem events and we hope that many people of all ages will enjoy experiencing it throughout the year.”
