- Aerated Water
- Air Engine
- Air Table
- Are you Hot or Not?
- Balancing Act
- Bending Beams
- Block the gap
- Braille
- Bridge the Gap
- Chalk Wall
- Changing Faces
- Chaotic Motion
- Circle of Discovery
- Circle of Discovery- The Internet
- Circle of Discovery-Bridge Design
- Circle of Discovery-Ideas hub
- Circle of Discovery-Internet
- Circle of Discovery-Medicine
- Circle of Discovery-photography
- Circle of Discovery: Design - Earthquake
- Circulation
- Colour Wheel
- Communication Codes
- Communication Dishes
- Computer
- Crystallography
- Digestive System
- Down the Drain
- Electromagnetic Spectrum
- Fibre Optics
- Flight Simulator
- Gear Table
- Handshake Mirror
- Harmonograph
- High Flyer
- Hit the Target
- Horizontal Periscope
- Human Battery
- It's Electric
- Larger Than Life
- Lift Me Pull You
- Light Table
- Lock Box
- Making Waves
- Mini Harmonograph
- Mobile Phone
- Move It
- Nervous System
- Newtons Cradle
- Organ Pipe
- Organ Pipe Tune
- Oscillating Pendulums
- Pendulums
- People Power
- Periscope
- Prove Pythagoras
- Radar
- Radio Station
- Reactable
- Reflection Refraction
- Robot Arm
- Science of Sport
- Sensation
- Simple Camera
- Simple Circuits
- Smoke Tunnel
- Solar Energy
- Sound Waves
- Structures and Stresses
- Telescope
- The Exhibition
- The Eye
- The Lung and Chest Cavity
- The Wheel Race
- Thermal Imager
- Tornado
- Tower of Hanoi
- Universe Wall
- Up and Down
- Vertical Periscope
- Viscosity
- Viscosity Plungers
- Volume and Mass
- Vortex
- Watch Your Waste
- Weight Lifter
- Wheels Within Wheels
- Wind Tunnel
Air Table
Activity.... Do – Think - Learn
The air table is an example of how air is used to reduce the friction between two surfaces. This science principle is used in hovercrafts.
Place a disc in the slot and pull back and let go.
What happens to the disc?
Now press the button and then try again.
What happens to the disc this time?
The Science Bit
The air table demonstrates the effects of friction. Friction is a force that acts between two surfaces. The surfaces can be solid and solid for example a bike tyre and the road surface. It can be a gas with a solid for example when you cycle along into the wind you feel the air pushing against your body. The effect of friction is to slow moving objects down and in doing so energy is lost as heat. The production of heat and the loss of energy are very important when machines with moving parts are designed. Engineers try to reduce friction to reduce the loss of energy and to reduce ware and tear. To do this lubricants are used reduce the friction between solid surfaces.
Curriculum Links
Pushes and Pulls
- That it is not only ourselves that make things move by pushing
- To ask questions about what is causing movement
Gases around us
- That air has weight and is all around us
- To explain phenomena related to air in terms of scientific knowledge and understanding
- That there are many gases and many of these are important to us
- That gases flow more easily than liquids and in all directions
Forces in Action
- That air resistance slows moving objects
- That when an object falls, air resistance acts in the opposite direction to the weight
Last Modified: 28/07/2011
