- 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
Wind Tunnel
The Wind Tunnel Exhibit lets you investigate air resistance
Activity.... Do – Think - Learn
Wind tunnels are used to test the affect of air flow around an object. This is important both for objects moving through the air and also for structures where air moves around them.
What will happen to each of the models when the wind blows?
How does changing the air speed affect the models?
The models include cars, houses, aeroplane wing and a wind turbine, connected to house electrics.
The Science Bit
This exhibit is a smaller version of a wind tunnel that is used in industry and resarch establishments. Observations are made of such things as lift, drag and the pattern of air flow. These observations are made using sensitive instruments such as special cameras. Wind tunnels like this are used to assess the aerodynamic design of cars, planes and bicycle helmets etc before full scale construction begins to take place.
Wind power is also exhibited in this exhibit. In the 1970’s wind turbines were started to be used to produce electricity. Wind has been a source of energy for centuries, used for things like sailing ships and wind mills.
Curriculum links
Pushes and pulls
- That there are many sorts of movement that can be described in many ways
- To observe and describe different ways of moving
- That pushing and 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 i.e. wind
- To ask questions about what is causing movement
Characteristics of materials
- To recognise properties such as hardness, strength and flexibility and compare materials in terms of properties
- That some materials are suitable for making a particular object because of their properties and some properties are more important than others when deciding what to use
Friction
- That there is a force between an object and a surface which may prevent the object moving
- Air resistance is a force that slows objects moving through air
- That the force between two moving surfaces in contact is called friction
- That friction can be useful
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
Last Modified: 25/07/2011
