Hands-on!!!

Today was, in my opinion, the most entertaining and educational day of the program. As a hands-on learner myself, I prefer to stand up and do something rather than be blasted with facts. I realize that facts are a necessity to learn, but there are different methods of acquiring these facts. And, the way that I acquire facts the best are through hands-on experiences. This is why it was so fun to be able to learn through a different method today. We were able to both create ferrofluids, and engrave our own sketch into a chip. First off, we created ferrofluids, which was tough at first, since our group made a horrible accident, confusing water for ammonia. However, our final product ended working and it was so worth the effort. Seeing how the ferrofluids react to magnetic fields to create spikes and different shapes was mind-boggling. We came to realize that more spikes were created when the magnets were not extremely close to the ferrofluid, but at a decent distance away. I think our entire group was disappointed when it was time to put our magnets down, but the activity that continued was entertaining as well. We got to engrave our own sketch into a chip, as I drew a childish dinosaur. Other than this hands-on experience, we began filming our project today after much talk over scenes & overall concepts. I strongly believe our end product will be dazzling, as we have put much thought and effort into our ideas. Our only big obstalice I see in the future is being able to translate our ideas into film. Overall, the day was very pleasing.

http://mrsec.wisc.edu/Edetc/background/ferrofluid/index.html

http://www.cracked.com/article_17476_7-man-made-substances-that-laugh-in-face-physics.html

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/chip.html

http://health.howstuffworks.com/lung.htm

http://tiki.oneworld.net/pollution/pollution_home.html