Science Fair

Last Friday our homeschool group had the annual Science Fair. Avery presented a project about his Lego Mindstorms robot. His age group (grades 1-2) was non-competitive, but he was happy to get a ribbon for participating. He did a great job speaking in front of the group this year. Here is an excerpt from his report:

Types of Robots

One kind of robot reminds its owners to take their medicine. It has a robotic camera in its body. One kind of robot moves around for you, it’s a really cool robot. Another kind of robot cleans your pool out. Another kind of robot when it is running low on batteries it goes and plugs itself in and it can tell you when intruders are breaking into the house. If you want to start building a robot you should get a Lego Mindstorms kit like we did. In Egypt some people kidnap kids and make them ride camels. Now they have robots that ride the camels instead. They have robotic soccer players plus they have a little dinosaur that learns and a robotic cat. Pets are not allowed in the hospital so this furry friend makes its owners feel better, it doesn’t walk. Somebody created a robot that makes faces. If you put a stuffed dinosaur in front of its eyebrows will be shaped like rainbows above his eyeballs and his mouth will open. The smallest robot ever made was about an inch. Somebody tried to turn his arm robotic. They have little worm robots that sneak around in the sand. They have created mini submarines that you put on your feet and you start moving. Some people use robots to go where they can’t go.

Reagan did an experiment using mice. He tested the effects of drinking soda on maze performance. We checked with Aunt Allison, Dr. of Veterinary Medicine to be sure it was ethical to give the mice soda. Here is his abstract:

Abstract

The purpose of my project was to find out if mice ran through a maze faster after drinking soda or water. I gave the mice some water and timed them running through the maze. Then I gave them soda and did step one over. I found that drinking soda made the mice run faster than drinking water. My hypothesis was correct.

This was his fourth year participating in the Science Fair and each year he gets more independent at coming up with and carrying out his project. This year he won 1st place for his age group!