25 August

Longitudinal and Transverse Waves

Seng Kwang Tan 11 Wave Motion, GeoGebra, IP3 08 General Wave Properties 0 Comments

I modified Tom Walsh’s original GeoGebra app to add a moveable single oscillating particle for students to observe its movement along a longitudinal wave and a transverse wave.

The app can also be used to show how the displacement of a particle in a longitudinal wave can be mapped onto a sinusoidal function, similar to the shape of a transverse wave. For example. a displacement of the particle to the right can be represented by a positive displacement value on the displacement-distance graph.

You can choose to select the particle that you want to focus on by using the slider.

For a full screen view, visit https://www.geogebra.org/m/auyft2pd

Here is an animated gif for those who prefer to insert it into a powerpoint slideshow instead:

Animation of longitudinal wave and transverse wave

For embedding into SLS or any platform that supports iframes.

<iframe scrolling="no" title="Progressive Waves" src="https://www.geogebra.org/material/iframe/id/auyft2pd/width/640/height/480/border/888888/sfsb/true/smb/false/stb/false/stbh/false/ai/false/asb/false/sri/true/rc/false/ld/false/sdz/false/ctl/false" width="640px" height="480px" style="border:0px;"> </iframe>

25 August

Movement of Particle in a Wave

Seng Kwang Tan 11 Wave Motion, GeoGebra, IP3 08 General Wave Properties 0 Comments

This GeoGebra app allows students to observe closely the movement of a particle in a progressive wave, with two possible directions of energy propagation.

In a typical question, students will be asked to predict the next movement of a particle given that a wave is moving left or right. Usually, students will need to imagine the waveform shifting slightly to the left or right in order to figure that out. This app follows the same visualisation technique to identify the subsequent movement of any particle along a wave.

11 August

Invisible Spheres using Hydrogel

Seng Kwang Tan IP3 07 Light 0 Comments

I used this demonstration to start a conversation about refractive index with my IP3 kids. These hydrogels certainly generated a lot of excitement as the kids were fascinated with how invisible it becomes when placed in water.

You can get a 1000 (yes, one thousand!) of these for $1.29 at Shopee. Make sure to choose the transparent ones instead of the coloured version when checking out.

Say goodbye to the messy demonstration involving the soaking of glass in a beaker of vegetable oil or glycerin.

23 July

Magdeburg Hemispheres

Seng Kwang Tan IP3 05 Density and Pressure, Pressure 0 Comments

As promised, I am sharing another purchase made during this mid-term break for my kids.

Magdeburg hemispheres are used to demonstrate the power of atmospheric pressure. This simple demonstration kit consists of two plastic hemispheres, a rubber ring, a one-way valve, a syringe and some rubber tubing.

First, the one-way valve and the syringe are attached to the hemisphere that has a nozzle.

The two hemispheres are then placed together with the rubber ring between them. The rubber ring will serve as a seal as the hemispheres press against it when the air is pumped out.

As the syringe is pulled, the pressure inside the sphere decreases. This results in the atmospheric pressure being significantly larger than the internal pressure and thus, the hemispheres can not be pulled apart by hand.

To separate the hemispheres, remove the tubing and the hemispheres will simply fall apart as the internal pressure rises and reaches an equilibrium with atmospheric pressure.

The kit can be bought for less than S$3 here. There are other sellers that seem to offer lower prices, which I realised while doing a search for the keywords “Magdeburg Hemispheres” only after making the purchase because I was thinking it could not get any lower.

21 July

Hydraulic Elevator

Seng Kwang Tan Blog, IP3 05 Density and Pressure 0 Comments

This is a hydraulic lift kit for kids that was purchased online for only S$2.10 from Shopee, with free shipping! I am not, in anyway, affiliated to this, but simply sharing about one of several fun and cheap educational sets that I bought to occupy my kids during this mid-term break.

Other than the syringe, joints and tube, the parts are mainly laser-cut from a piece of wood with a thickness of two millimetres. The instructions come with pictures for each step so even though the words are in Chinese, there is no need to read them.

This kit demonstrates Pascal’s principle which states that a pressure change in one part of a closed container is transmitted without loss to every part. Hence, the pressure change is transmitted from one syringe to another, allowing work to be done. Do not expect it to lift up very heavy weights, though as the syringes are not perfectly sealed.

I shall share about other kits that I bought for this break soon, including a $6.62 Tesla coil that I am looking forward to testing.