Affentitten

Bout time to start this one. Can any Englanders tell me why the first stop is Cardiff?

Yeah I recall covering that for Beyond 2000 years ago. The Phantoms made ideal target R/C target drones because they could actually simulate what a pilot would be shooting at much better than a Firebee or something. And with so many F-4s sitting around, they were pretty much free.

Another sound investment by the oil sheikhs.

SO they are probably worth more in scrap value than they are on the battlefield. IT's also an indication of just how much stuff they had. I saw fields like this in Ethiopia. Mainly T-55s and BRDMs by the hundreds just abandoned.

Apparently it went very well. She was a little disappointed because her regular teacher was off sick. But the substitute thought it was terriffic and said she had "set a pretty high benchmark" for the other kids. We added red food colouring to the water and this also proved to be a crowd pleaser. As for Africa.....Bugged is obviously a long-term fan! God knows what happened to all that stuff when the forum got updated and I moved jobs.

They're using printer ink?

It has been a good thread. Little Affentitten's speech is being rehearsed this weekend and hopefully she'll make an impressive display with her rocket. Luckily this household is generously supplied with empty tonic water bottles.

Nah. He works the other end of the market. He's selling to 65 year old CEOs and their wives. People that like to deal with an older man in a crisp white shirt and sober tie. Unfortunately, I can't afford the cars he sells. So I still have to deal with the 23 year old morons with baseball jackets and cigarette breath when I'm looking for wheels.

My dad is a car dealer! I think the kids will all have their moment in the sun next week. Or rather, the parents who actually did the work. I think the strangest entry is the kids whose dad has just slapped together a 1/400 model kit of the Graf Spee.

I saw the stuff on the Wiki page, but you know, I didn't really understand it. But now I do.

Mate, she's 7 years old. The idea of the moving toy project was primarily the home made construction. She's already feeling like a winner because most of her chums have made cars out of Lego or simple sailing boats that have to be pushed. Instead she'll get to take the class out on the soccer pitch and blast everyone with with water, soap and orange food dye (her idea to simulate rocket blast). In doing this together we have watched a few YouTube NASA videos about rocket launches, shuttle take-offs and so on and she's developed a basic understanding of flight stability, realising that rockets have fins for the same reason arrows have feathers. She has to give her speech and demonstration next week, but I think from a pedgagogical point of view it's already mission accomplished! And as I expected, I've learnt stuff too by raising the issue here. Regarding the soap issue and surfactants: if the propellant is escaping the nozzle more quickly, will this not actually mean a reduced thrust time? Or is that compensated by the greater velocity?

It's hard to measure the height with the naked eye. From all the trial runs we'd probably be getting about 8 metres or so. The launch platform is actually the wooden holder from on old yard glass I got for my 21st birthday. It's a bit dodgy so launch angle can vary from the vertical about 15 degrees! Also the test rocket has just been a plain PET bottle and it tends to tumble. The improved vehicle has fins and a nose cone, so it should be a bit more stable. But we haven't test launched it because of the fear of wrecking it. I noted on Wiki that the record altitude for a water rocket is over 600m! But having checked out the YouTube video it has about as much in common with with our rocket as a paper plane does with an SR-71.

Including the interesting observations from Mrs Affentitten when little Affentitten comes back with her school uniform deluged in canola oil.

Talk about a can of worms! In a way, I suppose the rocket is human powered, since the potential energy of the compressed air is being placed there by a standard bicycle pump.

Thought some of you more sciencey types may be able to help here. My 7 y.o. daughter has to build a "toy that moves" for a science project. It could be anything powered in any form. She elected to build a water rocket. The type where you pump a partially filled bottle full of air until the cork blows. Like this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_rocket She has to give a speech about the rocket, how she made it etc but she also has to describe what sort of energy is involved. That's fine for the kids who have wind/battery/mechanical toys, but I am not clear at all what the energy souce is for a water rocket from a technical point of view. Hydraulic? Help me out. Also, through serendipity, we found that adding detergent to the water increases the height the rocket can obtain. Can anyone proffer an explanation?

Generally bullpup means same or longer barrel length (hence accuracy) but less overall weapon length and weight.

Then in that spirit, I would like to say something nice about New Zealand. umm ummm ummmm I quite like Monteiths beer.

What happened to getting them drunk?

OOooh JonS. Walking over corpses again?

And best of all, not think too deeply about the moral repercussions of their work.

Basically, the question is "What happened?" I don't know much about the US car market, but I don't understand how these huge companies got so far down the crapper. Can someone explain to me? Was it inefficiency? Poor management? Union greed? Flooded market? Poor product? Please explain.

As for the gun hoe comment, I'd submit that it's quite possible for an urban 19 year old these days to have no idea what a hoe is. Most of them have never had to do any grdening chores.

And yesterday's winner was "...depicting an Arab city with doomed roofs."

And the latest essay line: "The believe that America is the Great Satin". The same student also referred to American foreign policy as "gun hoe".

Well I have a new winner: "...depicted as a land of baron desserts..."