Science & Stuff

For science today, Travis was suppose to design an aluminum "boat" which could be filled with fifty pennies and would float when its container was filled with water. This sounded so easy, but it turned out to be kind of tricky! Finally, Travis hit on the idea of first checking the design by filling the boat when it was already floating, then removing the water, adding the pennies, and (and I think this part was the key) adding a baffle. This either kept the water from changing the shape of the boat or .... well I don't know. Anyway, it worked!
*The part of the video in which the pennies are added is a little long -- my video producer didn't think to shorten it -- but be patient (or fast forward to 1:57)!


In other news, Ed went in to talk with his doctor about yesterday's MRI. Not good. His old spinal cord tumor appears to be growing back, and there are some other things there that shouldn't be. So next he'll get an appointment with a neurosurgeon. Your prayers and good wishes would be appreciated!

And finally, we watched the first lecture in the How to Be A Superstar Student series today, and the kids finished their work with good attitudes and in record time! I don't know if there is a connection or not, but I'm pretty pleased!