Halp School Project (Free Bacon and Gravy)

Domon said:
Really. I dunno what he's going to college for, but having a significant project that innovates (and maybe even gets a patent) is like +800% on your applications/scholarships/etc
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Working in admissions I can tell you that most failed apps are simple paperwork mistakes. Someone forgets to sign something, forgets to submit a document etc.

Then there are the 99% apps, which are average. The thing that really separates them is how much financial aid they are requesting and test scores.

Then there are the 1% apps which have to be so above and beyond in terms of accomplishment that it's really the 1%. Those have to catch the eye of whichever department they are applying to though and that all comes down to subjectivity.
 
ZRH said:
Working in admissions I can tell you that most failed apps are simple paperwork mistakes. Someone forgets to sign something, forgets to submit a document etc.

Then there are the 99% apps, which are average. The thing that really separates them is how much financial aid they are requesting and test scores.

Then there are the 1% apps which have to be so above and beyond in terms of accomplishment that it's really the 1%. Those have to catch the eye of whichever department they are applying to though and that all comes down to subjectivity.
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all depends on the type of university i would imagine though, right? At a community college, yeah, everyone is gonna be kinda equal and itll come down to money.

MIT? Everyone is gonna have 1600 SAT scores (or whatever the highest score is now) and be extraordinary. It will come down to things like what i mentioned above that set you apart. The kid who built a robotic self-assist standing wheelchair and is applying for the biomech program is gonna have a better chance than the kid that built a potato gun.
 
Domon said:
all depends on the type of university i would imagine though, right? At a community college, yeah, everyone is gonna be kinda equal and itll come down to money.

MIT? Everyone is gonna have 1600 SAT scores (or whatever the highest score is now) and be extraordinary. It will come down to things like what i mentioned above that set you apart. The kid who built a robotic self-assist standing wheelchair and is applying for the biomech program is gonna have a better chance than the kid that built a potato gun.
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Oh definitely. If for no other reason than potato guns are kinda lame. I wouldnt use it as a project to submit on an app. It would just be, "that's nice" but it's not an attention grabber.

People doing the first level of admissions are processing 500-900 application packets a day. Standing out from the blur is hard.
 
Domon said:
this is a dumb project, and your teacher is dumb.

You had a chance to separate yourself from every other high school kid for applications here. Now instead, you just showed that you're in school for "fun".
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How do you know that potato gun isn't going to go onto a tyler mount, which will be installed in a van operated by telepresence and used for non-lethal crowd dispersal? huh? HUH?
 
Duke said:
How do you know that potato gun isn't going to go onto a tyler mount, which will be installed in a van operated by telepresence and used for non-lethal crowd dispersal? huh? HUH?
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This is rollout we're talking about, I'm don't think he's got what it takes to pull that off.
 
We can't really be sure who's semen spawned rollout. You never know. His mom may have spent a little time slumming around The U and picked up some professor.
 
Rollout said:
Nope he didn't. I've always wanted to make a cannon. So I gave him the idea of making a PVC Cannon with the intent of teaching kids about Pneumatics and Kinematics.
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Nice. What volume/pressure is your accumulator going to be, what kinda projectile will you be using, and what's your expected muzzle velocity?

Domon said:
Really. I dunno what he's going to college for, but having a significant project that innovates (and maybe even gets a patent) is like +800% on your applications/scholarships/etc
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I completely disagree - I tutored plenty of people in math/physics in high school, and I can't count the number of times that I've had someone ask me, "what will I ever use this for in my adult life?"... And it's no surprise I got asked that, physics is normally boring as shit for most people - you run numbers through a bunch of different equations to eventually find out that newton got banged on the head by an apple at a velocity of 3.4m/s. Yawn.

The world needs tools like this one to make the sciences actually interesting and fun to do - making students absorb what they learn better, and perhaps sparking interest in a kid who up to that point didn't know what they wanted to do. A good teaching tool is definitely more important than some dumb (but omg, patentable!) gadget that gets cat hair off your clothes or something.

Once this gun is built, set up a challenge with it - set up a target some distance away from the cannon which kids have to hit. Give them the specs of the gun - air chamber volume, barrel length/diameter, projectile mass, etc - they have to pick the angle of the gun and the air pressure setting to hit the target. Offer prizes for hitting the target, and a grand prize for closest. You'll have people forming groups trying to get the equations figured out, people writing calculator programs or spreadsheets to go through them, etc. People will have a good time, and hey, they'll learn something. Which is the whole point!

And hey, maybe he's going to college to get an education degree *shrug*
 
gee said:
Nice. What volume/pressure is your accumulator going to be, what kinda projectile will you be using, and what's your expected muzzle velocity?


I completely disagree - I tutored plenty of people in math/physics in high school, and I can't count the number of times that I've had someone ask me, "what will I ever use this for in my adult life?"... And it's no surprise I got asked that, physics is normally boring as shit for most people - you run numbers through a bunch of different equations to eventually find out that newton got banged on the head by an apple at a velocity of 3.4m/s. Yawn.

The world needs tools like this one to make the sciences actually interesting and fun to do - making students absorb what they learn better, and perhaps sparking interest in a kid who up to that point didn't know what they wanted to do. A good teaching tool is definitely more important than some dumb (but omg, patentable!) gadget that gets cat hair off your clothes or something.

Once this gun is built, set up a challenge with it - set up a target some distance away from the cannon which kids have to hit. Give them the specs of the gun - air chamber volume, barrel length/diameter, projectile mass, etc - they have to pick the angle of the gun and the air pressure setting to hit the target. Offer prizes for hitting the target, and a grand prize for closest. You'll have people forming groups trying to get the equations figured out, people writing calculator programs or spreadsheets to go through them, etc. People will have a good time, and hey, they'll learn something. Which is the whole point!

And hey, maybe he's going to college to get an education degree *shrug*
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You will love this. Ran across it last weekend. http://www.ted.com/talks/tyler_dewitt_hey_science_teachers_make_it_fun.html
 
gee said:
Nice. What volume/pressure is your accumulator going to be, what kinda projectile will you be using, and what's your expected muzzle velocity?


I completely disagree - I tutored plenty of people in math/physics in high school, and I can't count the number of times that I've had someone ask me, "what will I ever use this for in my adult life?"... And it's no surprise I got asked that, physics is normally boring as shit for most people - you run numbers through a bunch of different equations to eventually find out that newton got banged on the head by an apple at a velocity of 3.4m/s. Yawn.

The world needs tools like this one to make the sciences actually interesting and fun to do - making students absorb what they learn better, and perhaps sparking interest in a kid who up to that point didn't know what they wanted to do. A good teaching tool is definitely more important than some dumb (but omg, patentable!) gadget that gets cat hair off your clothes or something.

Once this gun is built, set up a challenge with it - set up a target some distance away from the cannon which kids have to hit. Give them the specs of the gun - air chamber volume, barrel length/diameter, projectile mass, etc - they have to pick the angle of the gun and the air pressure setting to hit the target. Offer prizes for hitting the target, and a grand prize for closest. You'll have people forming groups trying to get the equations figured out, people writing calculator programs or spreadsheets to go through them, etc. People will have a good time, and hey, they'll learn something. Which is the whole point!

And hey, maybe he's going to college to get an education degree *shrug*
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Nope. He's gonna get arrested for bringing a gun to school, and have a felony on his record. Fact.


this is sarcasm, in case anyone didnt get it.

But he probably really will get arrested.
 
He'll be alright, provided:

- There's a project plan in place describing it as a teaching aid, giving sample applications for it
- Design calculations for the gun are done before construction begins, and the constructed gun meets the plans
- The amount of stored energy in the gun is low, and is difficult to increase without mods (small air chamber + fixed pressure relief valve)
- It's completely unwieldy/non-portable so you can't fire it handheld. Build it into a base with wheels, and make it difficult to separate them (ie, put a console with the pressure gauge on the base, not on the gun)
 
gee said:
He'll be alright, provided:

- There's a project plan in place describing it as a teaching aid, giving sample applications for it
- Design calculations for the gun are done before construction begins, and the constructed gun meets the plans
- The amount of stored energy in the gun is low, and is difficult to increase without mods (small air chamber + fixed pressure relief valve)
- It's completely unwieldy/non-portable so you can't fire it handheld. Build it into a base with wheels, and make it difficult to separate them (ie, put a console with the pressure gauge on the base, not on the gun)
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Provided we lived in a civil and logical society.
His teacher might have approved this, but what about the higher ups?

I would have written statements from the principal and/or director of the school saying explicitly that it is allowed, and it is the teacher's job to maie sure it is safe
 
Mr. Asa said:
Provided we lived in a civil and logical society.
His teacher might have approved this, but what about the higher ups?

I would have written statements from the principal and/or director of the school saying explicitly that it is allowed, and it is the teacher's job to maie sure it is safe
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It's not a firearm as defined by FL or Federal law.

Title XLVI Chapter 790 Paragraph 6 Florida Statute

If the teacher says it's ok then like yeah...
 
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