- 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
Mini Harmonograph
Mini-harmonograph demonstrates the behavior of compound pendulums
Activity.... Do – Think - Learn
This mini harmonograph is a double pendulum; the pendulums are side by side.
What kind of movement does a pendulum make?
How can you change the shape of the pattern?
The Science Bit
A pendulum is a weight which is swinging on the end of a rod. The weight is known as a ‘bob’. There are different types of pendulums including the ballistic pendulum and Foucault’s pendulum. If a bob at the end of a taught wire is held back and then released the pendulum will begin to swing freely back and fourth making an arc shape. This swinging action is caused by the force of gravity. As it continues to swing the arc shape that it makes becomes smaller and smaller until it comes to a complete stop. As the arc becomes smaller the speed also decreases, causing it to stop.
This exhibit has two pendulums which you can start swinging. There is paper attached to one pendulum and a pen to the other so you can see the pattern (arc) made, and where it becomes smaller and begins to slow down.
Curriculum Links
Pushes and Pulls
- That there are many sorts of movement which can be described in many ways
- To observe and describe different ways of moving
- That pushing or pulling things can make objects start or stop moving
- To identify similarities and differences between the movement of different objects
- To make suggestions about how objects can be made to move and to find out whether they were right
- That it is not only ourselves that make things move by pushing
- To ask questions about what is causing movement
Forces and Movement
- That pushes and pulls can make things speed up or slow down or change direction
- To explain how to make familiar objects move faster or slower
- To suggest questions about ways in which different objects move
- To suggest a question to test and predict what will happen
- To decide what to do and what measurements to take
- That pushes and pulls are examples of forces
Forces in Action
- That several forces may act on one object
Last Modified: 28/07/2011
