- Aerated Water
- Air Engine
- Air Table
- Are you Hot or Not?
- Balancing Act
- Bending Beams
- Block the gap
- Braille
- Bridge the Gap
- Chalk Wall
- Changing Faces
- Chaotic Motion
- Circle of Discovery
- Circle of Discovery- The Internet
- Circle of Discovery-Bridge Design
- Circle of Discovery-Ideas hub
- Circle of Discovery-Internet
- Circle of Discovery-Medicine
- Circle of Discovery-photography
- Circle of Discovery: Design - Earthquake
- Circulation
- Colour Wheel
- Communication Codes
- Communication Dishes
- Computer
- Crystallography
- Digestive System
- Down the Drain
- Electromagnetic Spectrum
- Fibre Optics
- Flight Simulator
- Gear Table
- Handshake Mirror
- Harmonograph
- High Flyer
- Hit the Target
- Horizontal Periscope
- Human Battery
- It's Electric
- Larger Than Life
- Lift Me Pull You
- Light Table
- Lock Box
- Making Waves
- Mini Harmonograph
- Mobile Phone
- Move It
- Nervous System
- Newtons Cradle
- Organ Pipe
- Organ Pipe Tune
- Oscillating Pendulums
- Pendulums
- People Power
- Periscope
- Prove Pythagoras
- Radar
- Radio Station
- Reactable
- Reflection Refraction
- Robot Arm
- Science of Sport
- Sensation
- Simple Camera
- Simple Circuits
- Smoke Tunnel
- Solar Energy
- Sound Waves
- Structures and Stresses
- Telescope
- The Exhibition
- The Eye
- The Lung and Chest Cavity
- The Wheel Race
- Thermal Imager
- Tornado
- Tower of Hanoi
- Universe Wall
- Up and Down
- Vertical Periscope
- Viscosity
- Viscosity Plungers
- Volume and Mass
- Vortex
- Watch Your Waste
- Weight Lifter
- Wheels Within Wheels
- Wind Tunnel
Air Engine
Air Engine
Activity.... Do - Think - Learn
Air pushing against a surface can cause movement. By linking mechanisms the direction of movement can be altered.
How can you assemble the different parts to make the wheel turn?
Try to make the wheel turn smoothly using only one hose.
Can you assemble the machine so it works on its own?
Where is this kind of machine used?
The Science Bit
Appliances driven by air are called pneumatic devices. The pneumatic devices are often used because they are safe and there are no stray sparks which could cause any problems as only compressed air (air that is at greater pressure than the atmosphere) is used. There are two ways in which a pneumatic device could work. The first way could be an up and down motion of a piston in a cylinder and the second way is rotary where the air gets compressed by something similar to an axial pump.
Curriculum Links
Pushes and pulls- That there are many sorts of movement which can be described in many ways
- To observe and describe different ways of moving
- That pushing or pulling things can make objects start or stop moving
- To make suggestions about how objects can be made to move and to find out whether they were right
- That it is not only ourselves that make things move by pushing
- To ask questions about what is causing movement
Forces and movement
- That pushes and pulls can make things speed up or slow down or change direction
- To explain how to make familiar objects move faster or slower
- That pushes and pulls are examples of forces
Last Modified: 28/07/2011
