Gyroscope Science Projects
- You can make a momentum machine to understand the principle of a gyroscope. You need a rotating stool, two heavy weights and a person's help. Sit in the rotating chair with two hands outstretched and keeping a weight in each hand. Let your partner rotate the chair and move away. Once you've started rotating, pull both the weights inward and you will find that your speed increases. Now you have implemented the principle of a gyroscope. Angular momentum is the tendency of a rotating object to rotate in the same speed, unless affected by an external force. It depends on the mass of an object and its distribution. As the angular momentum is to be constant, when one of the factor increases, the other should automatically decrease.
- Design a gyroscope of your own just using a rotating chair, bicycle wheel and two handles. Attach the handles to both sides of the axle of the wheel using a bolt. Hold the handles of the wheel, and tilt in one direction. Sit on the rotating chair and ask your friend to rotate the wheel in your hands. Your chair will also get rotated by itself. If you tilt it in the opposite direction and repeat the same procedure, your chair will spin in the opposite direction. Here, wheel and the chair together make the system.
- Bolt a cycle wheel inside a suitcase through the top and bottom. Use a tube and blow air to make the wheel spin faster. Pick up the suitcase and walk forward and backward. Once you start walking, it will either start banging into your leg or flying out into the air.
- Make a top of your own with a test tube and a CD. Keep the CD on the test tube just like a spin. Try to spin it. Now keep one more CD above the other CD and try to spin it. You could see that when you spin with two CDs, your top spins longer.
