Nerf Project for Science Day

My Daughter had to come up with a project for the school science day.

I was a little surprised when she asked me about doing somthing with the NERF blasters as she hates being ambushed by her brother when we are fooling around.

Anyway I suggested we try and work out the speed of the darts when fired from a range of blasters. I did some googleing and found a couple of instructionals about using an audio chronograph to calculate NERF speeds so we thought it would make a good project. Her brother was even keen to help.

Here is some of her project





And some results

Blaster
Night Finder Average Speed 17.66 MTRS/SEC
Maverick Average Speed 14.04 MTRS/SEC
Modified Long Shot Average Speed 26.15 MTRS/SEC

(Longshot has Brass Breech and BT spring)

I hope you enjoy. I know I did, it was a project I didnt mind helping with and its good to see kids excited about science. There was a certain Mythbusters feel about the whole process

Cheers Pete

Wow, How did your Daughter go?

-Luke

Luke wrote:Wow, How did your Daughter go?

-Luke

Its not Due till this Wednesday so no marks till after then.

Ok, Good Luck

-Luke

this is actually a pretty cool idea. might have to try this out =D

FOR SCIENCE!

I love the idea, I don't teach science but if anyone asked me to recommend to them an idea for an experiment, I'd give something like this

think im gonna pick up a desktop mic tomorrow at work and try this out

Hey this is a cool way to measure velocity =). I'll throw it in the modifications directory since it might be useful.

littlebro05 wrote:Hey this is a cool way to measure velocity =). I'll throw it in the modifications directory since it might be useful.

Yes...VERY useful indeed.

This could be a way to be able to quote genuine performance estimates about your blaster.

Combined with a good old fashioned measurement in feet it would eliminate bulls#$%ting and exaggeration.

Also in some states don't they (them) stipulate that anything discharging at over 180ft/sec is an actual weapon?

I wonder if I couldn't use my Sony video editing software, which has a very accurate timeline with a separate slot for audio.

I could probably use my iphone or bloggie to record the results, then upload it onto my laptop and measure the time that way.

26.5m/sec that is pretty fast, love it

If anyone wants to give it a try the audio software we used is availabe as a free download

Its called audacity and you will find it HERE

You go girl!

Hope the mark is a good one!