Science Workz
Exhibits
The exhibition is organised into four (4) sets of Science exhibits, with a total of over thirty exhibit booths that illustrate science concepts on the topics of:
Light
Although "light" is only a small portion of the infinite electromagnetic spectrum, it is in the narrow band with which we see all the wonders and wonderful colours of our world and beyond. Light is life!
Some of the exhibits...
-
Light & Prisms
A convex (broader middle) block across 2 beams converges the beams. Placing a concave (thinner middle) block between the light and the convex block moves the convergent point away from the blocks. This is a basic analogy of a myopic eye being corrected by a concave spectacle lens.
-
Mixing Coloured Light
Red, blue and green are primary colours. You can make shadows of seven different colours with them.
Optical Illusion
The act of "seeing" is a complex function. To see, light simply needs to come from the object (to be seen), and enter our (normal, healthy) eye(s). But then those upside down images on our retinae must "ascend" into our brain which then processes or interprets them, taking into consideration all types of cues, memories of ..., associations with ..., ie transforming from a physical to a physiological to a psychological problem. These exhibits show how easily the "human side" of the process of seeing can be quite easily tampered with.
Some of the exhibits...
-
Vanishing Pirate Ship
When the inner disc is turned to 12 o'clock, 12 ships are seen. When turned forward to the 1 o'clock position, each ship is matched to a larger section from its neighbour, thus producing the accumulated ship. When the disc is at the 1 o'clock position, each ship has lost a very small amount (1/12) of its total area.
-
Reverse Perspective Painting
Moving sideways, the doors seem to open/close. Moving towards it, seem to reverse the front/back perspective. These effects are mainly caused by types of motion parallax.
Mathematics
People believed (and still do!) that numbers are more than they are. The subject of Mathematics is an expansive field covering numbers, statistics, shapes, …, with endless applications, some of which have very important implications. Mathematics is fun! They discipline the mind. But Mathematics is most awesome as a language! Beautiful, neat, concise, descriptive, even encompassing. To discover the universe in an equation is simply wondrous.
Some of the exhibits...
-
Drive You Nuts
Arrange the hexagonal pieces such that all the numbers along common (touching) edges are the same.
-
Guess Your Number
Any number between 1 to 63 can be expressed as a 6-digit binary number. The 6 cards and the numbers on each card are arranged (wired) such that the sequence of buttons pressed actually expressed the binary of the number you thought of.
Magnetism
Magnets and magnetism are (still) mysterious things - a force acting at a distance without touching, attracting and repulsing. But they are also fun to play with. They have applications vital to our lifes too: from massive data storage, to medicine, ...
Some of the exhibits...
-
Electromagnetic Lift
Electricity passing through the coil produces a magnetic field. This changing field, in turn, generates a current in the metallic slug, which then creates its own magnetic field, which opposes the original field. The slug is then pulled up the centre of the coil due to the interaction of the 2 magnetic fields. By sequentially generating fields above the slug, the latter can be pulled up the ladder of coils.
-
Floating rings
The rings threaded on the rod are powerful magnets. By stacking the rings such that one ring's North pole-face faces its neighbours North pole-face, the rings are "suspended" – repulsed by their opposing poles. Notice the lower gap is smaller than the high one. Why? What do you think the gaps between rings will be if more rings are added?
