Science Project

[Swapfoot]

My son (11 years old) wants to do a school science fair project around his shooting sports. I realize that I have combined, kids, school, and shooting in the same sentence, but I have permission from the school. I had something in mind, but I thought I would see if anyone has any good ideas that I can steal. We obviously can't bring guns or live ammo to school, but we can form a hypothasis and try to support it with "lab" data. Any cool ideas would be appreciated.

Greg

[PhantomJ]

How about a proof that a bullet fired horizontally and one dropped from the exact same height hit the ground at the same time? Simple enough concept, but a lot of people don't know/understand it.

[Scutter01]

How about calculating bullet trajectories on Earth versus on the Moon, and determine how fast and at what angle it would have to go to achieve orbit? You don't necessarily need to do any math for it, if it's beyond his skill, but he should be able to make some hypotheses and do internet research to obtain data to draw a conclusion.

[lovemywoods]

Anything around ballistics could be fun. If you have access to a chronograph, could show different velocities for different round. Relate that to total energy (1/2mv^^2).

Could do some simple penetration tests using common materials and a few common rounds. See the site The Box O' Truth - Ammo Penetration Testing for some examples.

Could do some water penetration tests. (Start saving milk jugs now!).

Have fun!

[obijohn]

my son has done several science projects along these lines. one was the effect of barrel length on velocity. we used a paintball gun and cut the barrel in one inch increments. the results were...interesting. by taking copious notes, photos and vids the need for taking the actual hardware to school was not needed for the display. btw, spencer took a first at his sschool and a first at regionals with special award (certificate and cash) from the department of the army.
he also did one csi style. i took 6 .22 pistols and shot 5 rounds from each one in a barrel of water. he and his partner attempted to match the brass and the bullets to the pistols. due to the crude equipment used to make the id, the results weren't what the boys hoped for, but the science was sound.
i also helped some high school boys do some penetration vs velocity studies with a .45. helped them with the "lab work" of the experiment, but i don't know any of the results.

hope this helps and good luck with the science project.

[42769vette]

when i was in early high school i did a science fair project on the affect barrel length has on decibles (how loud the gun was) of cource i knew a shorter barrel gun in the same caliber would be louder but it made for a great project and i got to shoot tons of guns my brother-in-law had a decible meter

[spasmo]

My daughter is doing the science fair project this year too but she wants to do something with Rocks and Minerals. I don't know what yet but that's the subject anyway. She's 9.

[cordex]

I had a friend who did one that evaluated change in bullet velocities based on the amount of powder put into a cartridge.

[Scutter01]

Originally Posted by spasmo

My daughter is doing the science fair project this year too but she wants to do something with Rocks and Minerals. I don't know what yet but that's the subject anyway. She's 9.

Oooh! She should do lunar geology! Maybe we could get these guys involved!

[Bazooka Joe71]

Awhile back my younger brother did one on shot patterns from different barrel lengths and at different distances.