Tennis Ball Popper

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License: Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike Tennis Ball Popper Jordanstown Schools
Views: 1509
21 Sep, 2007

Duration: 01:14
Team: Jordanstown Schools
Region: Northern Ireland

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Categories:
Demonstration , Make & Do , Physics , Secondary

Turning a tennis ball into a jumping popping thing.

Director's Notes:

A simple film that shows a neat way of turning a tennis ball into one of those popper things. When you flex it inside out, the elastic popper stores energy which is released suddenly when it pops back the other way, sending the (lightweight) table tennis ball shooting off.

SciCast Notes:

This is a quick, simple film that neatly incorporates simultaneous signing. While I’d have liked to have heard a little more about the science that’s going on, synchronising the speech and signing took a lot of effort, and the group did well to finish the film. Adding more information would have made their job even harder!

So, the only thing that’s really lacking is a good clear close-up of the tennis ball popper in action. It’d be lovely to get another film that shows some more detail - find yourself an old tennis ball, a pair of sturdy scissors, and a camera, and send us that film!

— Jonathan