Experimental Research Ideas: Physical Sciences

Below are project topic and research question ideas for, primarily, physics and chemistry, the key physical science disciplines. These have been checked and should allow for original research opportunities - that is, you could make actual discoveries and novel findings for each of these projects! And  you should not need access to a professional laboratory, but rather can design and build an experiment in your school lab or even in your own house.

As an example of how you and students can get ideas from everyday phenomena, see a personal favorite using hydraulic jump. Here is a lesson idea and accompanying video of the activity.

As this site develops over time, just click on a topic of interest, and it will take you to a separate post about that specific topic. You will find background information, relevant links to articles, vocabulary, experimental methods, videos, and so on. Hopefully you will find enough information to actually be able to do the project! Worst case, you should be able to get all sorts of ideas for experiments and how to make them your own, original research. 

Experimental Topics & Research Questions: Physical Sciences

Fluid Dynamics

• Coiling of viscous jet in water – could vary diameter of container, width of jet, height from which honey falls into water, temp of water, vary width of container, have multiple layers of fluids (oils on water), uneven bottom of container, depth of water in the container (how do number, radius, width of honey strand, and vertical stretch between coils vary when other variables are changed); 2 or more honey jets at various distances from each other to see if they affect each other compared to a single jet; what happens when the honey stream pours into water that is rotating (put glass on a turn table, for instance)?; what if stream is poured onto a surface that oscillates vertically at various frequencies and amplitudes; poured onto a surface that is angled; any differences in coiling in salt water vs. plain tap water or distilled water. 

http://semester52.wikispaces.com/Why+Do+Honey+and+Syrup+Form+a+Coil+When+They+Are+Poured

http://www.colorado.edu/MCEN/flowvis/galleries/2010/Get-Wet/Reports/Decker_Terese.pdf

http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~batty/papers/BattyBridson08.pdf

• Faraday waves over large frequency range (see an example)
• Faraday waves mimicking particles in quantum mechanics - http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2010/quantum-mechanics-1020.html
• Oscillate water droplets with oil drop sitting on top – do you still get Faraday waves? This is thought of as a Faraday wave/instability on a "floating drop."
• Test for Faraday waves or any other patterns in wide range of viscosity, different fluids, mixtures of fluids. Or try with different concentrations of something like salt water, which is ionic. Or liquids that are more like suspensions (having small particles within the liquid), colloids, etc. 
• Oscillate drops on surfaces that are not flat. For instance, what if the drop sits on top of a surface that has a small indentation, so the bottom of the droplet is not flat. Rather than a hemisphere of water, it is closer to a full sphere droplet - are there still Faraday waves, or some other pattern, or nothing at all? With a 3-D printer, you could make an endless array of shaped indentations, put some liquid in, and observe what happens with numerous boundary conditions.
• Oscillate ferrofluid, any patterns or Faraday waves? Vertically oscillate in magnetic field.
• Effect of liquid drops falling on drops sitting on hard surface; effect of single grain falling on liquid drop (drop at rest, or vibrating, or flowing when grain lands)
• Flow pathways of single droplets. What determines how individual drops break down and flow? With a 3-D printer, one could make any type of surface with different contours, gaps, indentations/topologies you'd like to test. 
• When misting outside, water droplets form on a car windshield and side windows. What is the maximum size of a drop as a function of angle of the glass surface? Does temperature affect this size? Critical angle when a drop will flow down?
• Droplets falling with wind
• Is there an optimal pattern of irrigation channels for crops? Interesting idea of fractals and planting patterns. A lot of work has been done on irrigation for farming, but one can make original projects in irrigation for larger, local gardens or other areas that require controlled water flow. Think community garden areas, the properties of local soil, the slopes of the local and regional landscape, if there are local or regional plants being grown that require different amount of water, local and regional weather patterns, whether there needs to be changing irrigation patterns if there is crop rotation done from year to year, and so on. This could make for interesting long-term research projects for schools in rural farming areas. 
• Minimal conditions for a hydraulic jump to form (flow rate, jet width, height of fall, etc)
• Petri dish with thin layer of water oscillating over  large range of frequencies – are there conditions that allow pattern formation (i.e. Faraday waves)?
• Boundary walls in turbulent water (Sci Am June 2013)
• Stationary hydraulic jump: Activity to demonstrate how to find research questions from seemingly simple phenomena, and which could be true discovery questions
• Stationary hydraulic jump – Effects of jet structure (see an example)
• Stationary hydraulic jump on inclines (see an example) 
• Non-cylindrical jet hitting surface, such as a liquid sheet: is there a jump?
• Fluid mixing – jet mixing from laminar and turbulent jets (see an example)
• Fluid mixing - when streams of two liquids flow ('collide') with each other
• Liquids falling through other liquids: Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities  http://gizmodo.com/theres-some-complex-physics-in-these-photos-of-ink-fall-1749529870 for pics of ink droplets in water
• Multiple jets – interaction between two hydraulic jump systems (see an example)
• Multiple jumps interfering on inclined surfaces
• Liquid droplets bouncing on a liquid vibrating surface exhibit a 'walking' phenomenon, alternating between moving and sitting still. 
• Polygonal jumps (higher viscosity)
• Effect of turbulent jet on jump
• Hydraulic jumps on temperature varying surfaces? Explore if surface temperatures affect any properties of hydraulic jumps. 
• Interactions between water droplets/flows/soaked materials and heated oil bath. There are so many variations on this primary study one could do...with, of course, safety coming first since you would want to be prepared for the 'sizzling' effects of doing this type of mixing. 
• Flow patterns/currents in rotating dishes or containers
• Flow and wave patterns of a wave table with water draining out of hole in center; table could be rotating, flat, warped, angled, have grooves/cuts, obstacles on surface, etc. 
• Rotational super-radiant scattering in a vortex flow (Nature Physics article)
• Water with oil layer draining from a wave table; a variation on this could be the flow patterns and properties of water with oil layer (or any two liquids of differing densities) flowing through a funnel.
• Droplets on different surfaces - how and why do some bead, and others spread out? There is interest in how "odd couple" combinations of liquids and surfaces interact and how we might be able to better control what happens.
• Droplets of mixed liquids create patterns when evaporating
• Residues and patterns left behind on surfaces after different liquids evaporate; could vary the surfaces on which they evaporate, could vary the rate of evaporation using temperature to see if there are variations in the residue patterns; flat vs angled surfaces
• Fluids flowing through various sized spouts or funnels
• Effect of thin layer(s) of sand/granular on surface for hydraulic jump formation; same with thin layer of oil on surface
• Effect of thin layer(s) of sand/granular on rotating surfaces for hydraulic jump formation; same with thin layer of oil on surface
• Vertically vibrated fluids (varying viscosities)
• Thin layer of a fluid on a flexible, elastic surface (such as a trampoline device) and drop an object on the surface to view any patterns and behaviors of the disruption of the fluid layer. 
• Fluid modeling (Navier-Stokes equations)
• Define patterns on inclines mathematically
• Hydraulic jump on rotating surface
• Hydraulic jump on ‘see-saw’ surface or vertically oscillating surface (see an example)
• Effects of local disturbances/obstacles on hydraulic jump
• Effect of surface temperature on hydraulic jump
• How fluids flow as fluid temperature changes
• Can there be a vertical hydraulic jump? Let a nearly horizontal jet of water (or other liquid) hitting a vertical wall, angled wall.
• Effect on hydraulic jump when jet falls on a bump/needle of varying diameters
• Effect on the shape of a hydraulic jump after jet lands on a 3D shaped object
• Hydraulic jump properties using fluids such as dressings (mix of water and oils, etc.) 
• Jet falling on tip of a cone, is there a hydraulic jump? Is there a minimum radius for the tip? Does a jump form on the angled sides (vary angle)? If not water, higher viscosity fluids?
• Time evolution of surface properties/patterns (on top surface of the water) as water fills a container 
• Splashing, splash suppression on surfaces (see an example); droplets splashing (see an example; as drop hits, flattens, and goes up, is there any connection between that radius and a jump's radius)
• The effect of drops of liquid falling on granular surfaces (see an example); much has been done studying craters left by solid objects, but what about something like water balloons (or balloons filled with viscous liquids, some water and some solid material in same balloon, etc)?
• Experiments with floating objects. An example is ice. What does it look like melting without any other effects. Then compare melting with a heat source in the pool at a variety of locations. Or you can try various currents. One could look at rates of melting, but also the geometrical properties of the portion of the ice that is under water. Icebergs, for instance, have surfaces that look like golf balls, with all types of 'dimples' formed due to ocean currents. 
• Experiments with Leidenfrost effect - this is where a liquid on a surface hotter than its boiling point will levitate on a thin layer of vapor. Here is another article with video examples. 
• Time evolution of evaporating drops
• When do streams and drops of liquids break up? See an example.
• Properties of water streams being shot out vertically from squirt bottles. Could have a pendulum (or two) with a heavy bob swing down and collide with a bottle that is then compressed, shooting water -vertically upwards. Numerous parameters (control speed and force of impact; material of the bottle; depth and type of liquid in the bottle; diameter and length of the spout; angle of the bottle; bottle being hit on one side or on opposing sides with two identical pendulums; the mass and shape of the pendulum bob). The force of impact could be measured using a force plate.
• Properties of water streams shot out horizontally from squirt bottles. In this setup on could drop masses onto the bottle to control the applied compression force. 
• Fluid flow of all types as function of surface temperature; could use an electric hotplate or griddle to control surface temperature.
• Structures that can collect water overnight from condensation of moisture in the air - can you find new ways to do this that are cost-effective, so poor regions of the world can build them? Are there natural structures and/or organisms we can study and mimic to do this sort of thing (biomimetics)? 
• Generating electricity from rivers, with potential differences between salt and fresh water; a new filter could allow for 'blue energy.'

Numerous research articles and ideas on fluid flow.

Numerous research articles and ideas on fluid droplets.

Numerous fluid articles on John Bush's MIT site (applied math professor), including hydraulic Bump, pilot wave dynamics, bouncing droplets, walking droplets, and more. Many good ideas and variations can be done on these.

Unstable jumps (high flow rates) http://www.nbi.dk/~horlyck/Publications/HHZDC_1997.pdf

Granular Materials

• Vertically vibrated sand, bronze powder (see an example) to get oscillons. 
• Vertically vibrated, surface angled - are oscillons still formed
• The container in which one has the granular material could have small indentations in the bottom surface, or a bumpy surface, or various shaped 'mounds' on the bottom surface so that the granulars cover it. Do these types of non-flat abnormalities of the container affect the behavior of oscillated granular materials? With a 3-D printer, could make surfaces with any topology. 
• High frequency vibrated granulars (> 100 Hz) (see an example)
• Avalanching experimentation (see an example)
• Wind-blown granular (difficult to do simulations of sand storms, experimental work with this type of phenomenon)
• Vertically vibrated patterns as function of air pressure (in bell jar)
• Vertically vibrated granulars on rotating surface
• Properties of damp/wet granular systems
• Simultaneous horizontal and vertical vibrations
• Rotated systems – separation of mixtures
• Vibrated mixed systems, various sized grains
• Flow gas through a mix of dense and less dense sands, and it is possible for the less dense sand to form 'sand bubbles' that rise through the more dense material, just like real fluids do. 
• Effect of humidity and moisture on granular material behaviors
• Time evolution of mixing of layers in vertically vibrated granulars (see an example). One could use different colored sand/small beads for each layer, then watch how the layers get mixed when shaken vertically.
• Effect of barriers/walls in container of vertically vibrated granulars; is there any horizontal movements of grains, or do patterns remain same despite vertical barriers (see an example)
• Effect of temperature changes on (dry, damp, wet) granular systems
• Stratification and segregation in heap formation (see an example)
• Have thin layers of a granular material, perhaps sand, on a flexible, elastic surface (such as a trampoline device) and drop objects on the surface to map out any patterns that result. 
• Pile behavior while being ‘sucked’ by a vacuum
• Pile formation when grains are blown into vertical surfaces of varying shapes
• Piles of granulars in combination with fluid dynamics: a variety of experiments can be imagined dealing with how granular materials are washed away/eroded by fluids. It could be streams of water flowing into a pile, jets of water falling onto a pile, combinations of those two. It could be combinations of winds and flows of water. It could be flows of granular materials into fixed piles of granulars - something like an avalanche that comes down an incline and flows into piles at the bottom of the incline. 
• Compare and contrast avalanches of sand in air and underwater. This is a challenging study to try, but doable.
• Bulldozing a pile - same size grains, vs mix of sizes, shapes, etc.
• Flow down funnels
• Pendulum swinging into piles of granular materials, distribution after the collisions (can change angle of impact, size/mass/speed of pendulum bob, string pendulum vs rigid pendulum, size of grains, homo- vs heterogeneous mixtures of grains, same vs variety of sizes of grains, dimensions of pile, dry vs moist piles, etc.)
• Thin streams or 'jets' of fine granular material falling on hard surfaces, liquid surfaces, other granular surfaces; try experiments similar to what is done with thin jets of liquid falling, such as hydraulic jump type experiments - compare and contrast the two sets of experiments, what are the main differences? 
• Effect of single grain falling into drops of liquid; single grain falling into a drop of vibrating liquid (such as with Faraday waves on the drop's surface)
• Single grains falling onto single layer of granular material; or two, three, n+1 layers; could try same size or differing sized grains falling compared to grains on surface.
• Deep layers of material being vibrated; how deep is too deep for any oscillons or other patterns to appear in these experiments? 
• Technique to see individual particles in a granular collection, http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/science-technology/article55149400.html 

Numerous articles and ideas on granular materials.

NU: http://www.physics.nwu.edu/research/nonlin.html


Materials: Fragmentation, Cracking/Breaking/Splintering Properties/Collisions, Friction

• Blow to sticks of various materials (such as by a pendulum, controlled dropping of objects onto sticks or whatever objects are being studied), and fragmentation and/or breaking patterns exhibited by those materials
• Blow to sheets of materials, and denting and/or cracking and/or fragmentation and/or breaking patterns exhibited by those materials. This is an example using glass slides (for microscopes). There are some other ideas for experiments with glass here. 
• Fragmentation of sticks, such as spaghetti - a classic study of taking a cylindrical stick, like dry spaghetti, and bending it until if breaks. What are the properties of this? This type of study can be done for any type stick, material, size, thickness, etc. (see an example)
• Fragmentation of sticks, but with various amounts of soaking. For instance, take a piece of dry spaghetti and soak it in water for some small period of time. Compare these to dry sticks. One could vary the time of soaking to see if there is some optimal state that fragments at a maximum applied force. Does small amounts of soaking actually make the stick stronger (i.e. fragment at stronger applied forces)?
• A thin sheet of ice on a trampoline, with something then dropped on it at different locations, produces incredible shattering/fragmentation patterns. I am unaware of any systematic study of this phenomenon, and it could be studied as a function of thickness of the layer of ice, how much of the surface is covered with ice, location of where an object lands on the surface, temperature, and so on. Using high speed video could really allow for some interesting data collection. 
• Materials under pressure: cracking/fragmentation/breaking points exhibited by those materials. How does thickness affect results? Layering? Shape of object? If doing layers, what if one alternated layers of different materials - how does that change your observations and measurements?
• Natural materials such as onion skins could be used. How strong are those, pound for pound, compared to human-made membranes? Are there cellular structures that correspond to strengths that we could try to replicate in the lab (biomimetics)? 
• Blow to foam materials; do drilled out patterns change the dynamics of the collisions? (see an example)
• Studies of all the above as a function of shape, geometry of the material sample
• Studies of all the above for samples of materials brand new versus worn/used samples; do existing scratches or indentations cause significant differences in these properties under the same experimental conditions? One could vary the depth/length/size of scratches or indentations.
• Use a 3-D printer to make a variety of different, interesting shapes, and test the compression, bending, cracking, or whatever, properties. Are fractal-based or asymmetric shapes stronger than classical 3-D shapes such as pyramids, cubes or spheres? 
• Using something like a hot plate or electric griddle, set up experiments that test if coefficients of kinetic friction have dependency on surface temperatures. 
• Use a 3-D printer to create bumpy surfaces, where you control the heights and widths of the bumps, and try to set up surfaces with unique, controllable coefficients of friction. This is 'tuning' the friction of the surfaces. 

Numerous articles and ideas on fragmentation.

Heat Flow

• Temperature distributions within containers (see an example)
• Heat flow in materials (see an example)
• Temperature distributions within materials and objects, such as fruit or vegetables, sitting on a hotplate, or partially submerged in boiling water. Distributions can be measured using small thermistors, at various depths and positions, to get positional temps as a function of time. Could use different sizes and volumes of the material, different depths of water, different surface temps the material is placed upon, etc.
• Temperature distributions and time dependency in materials with oscillating heat source (see an example)
• Heat refraction (heat flow from one material to another; see an example)
• Temperature distributions in fluids due to heat source (point source vs uniform exposure; with and without currents, turbulence; geometry and size of container; depth of liquid)
• Effect of surface temperature on frictional properties (see an example)

Numerous articles and ideas on heat flow.


Complex Systems

• Counterintuitive behavior of mechanical systems (see an example)
• Synchronization of metronomes on a common surface (see an example) 
• Synchronization of coupled double pendula (see a modeling example)
• Magnetic drag forces (see an example)

Construct your own chaotic device, using a pendulum bob with a magnet attached, and other fixed magnets on a surface, that the pendulum will swing near. The magnetic forces make it a different motion every single time! Using video, is it possible to map and analyze the motion for given sets of initial conditions of the pendulum bob?

Numerous articles and ideas on complexity.
Numerous articles and ideas on emergence.

GeoScience

This will be built up over time. We will be working with Northwestern University Geoscience professors to develop some ideas for research into geology and geophysics. Some initial broad ideas to consider if you have an interest, would include drone studies of your local area. There will also be some projects that can use data from Google Earth, which shows truly remarkable features in the topology and geology of any region of the world - one can zoom in to see geologic structure, some of which has never been looked at in detail.  

• Weather analysis using CODAP, a data analysis platform developed by the Concord Consortium, to analyze NOAA data. One can analyze data going back to the 1890s. 

More to come!
Engineering Related

• Create a conductive wall, to the point where it is a sort of touchscreen surface.
• Find an everyday sort of problem, and figure out a solution with materials you have available. One cool example is a copper plated cell phone case, that was 3-D printed, to help fight COVID-19. Turns out this virus cannot live on copper surfaces. What local or common problems are you aware of? Choose one of interest, and brainstorm ideas to see if you can think of anything that could help! 
• 'Think outside the box' and come up with your own useful, clever, innovation such as building an actual, useful prosthetic leg from bicycle parts; or a bike that washes clothes when pedaled (used in third-world countries); or a cheap but high yield tower garden that low-income families could purchase and grow their own fresh produce in an inner-city food desert; or something like Plumpy'nut, a surprisingly simple, tasty and cheap food mix that has saved countless lives during famines in Africa; or a solar-powered suitcase capable of recharging laptops in poor villages that do not have consistent electricity; or find a simple, cheap way to test if water is clean and safe to drink or use to wash items; or can you find a hybrid crop that produces something edible that grows in low-moisture environments; or can you find practical uses for common items that are thrown out or recycled. Find a problem and then come up with a practical, doable solution!! This is what engineers and entrepreneurs do!

• What structures are strongest? Can you use structures found in nature that can improve human-made structures or devices? For example, for fields such as aerodynamics and hydrodynamics, check out features of living organisms that fly or swim - get ideas for optimal shapes and features since nature has had hundreds of millions of years of evolution to 'figure out' solutions for moving through fluids. Or in something like biomechanical engineering, what are the characteristics of organisms that exhibit extreme strength to size ratios? Or how and why is spider silk stronger than steel (pound for pound)? Be creative and there are countless possible studies to try!