When Is It Science Fair / Science Project Time ?? about now?

I had great fun trying to teach a bunch of seventh-graders how to *run* a mousetrap car, let alone *build* one, even given a whole class period. They mostly couldn't figure out how to wrap the string around the axle so that it would pull and not slip. Almost none of the boys, even, had ever started a lawnmower, so the physics of it was a mystery to them.

The ESL class did dramatically better than the English-speakers--they were able to take pre-built mousetrap cars, put rubber band tires on the plywood wheels, and wind the string so the cars went.

Cheers,

Phil Hobbs

Interesting observation.

Mechanical skills seem to be deterioriating, I gather.

I had my great nephew - a budding computer science student proclaim that his empty bicycle tire was "broken" because when he tried to put air into it at the gas station pump, the air wouldn't go in.

So, I held the tire valve stem with one hand and the pump nozzle with the other and the tire filled up real fast.

At any rate, this may be the time of the year in which the technical newsgroups get "pumped" by students trying to hurry up and make a science project at nearly the last minute.