Category: Blog

  • Mourning The Rev

    Mourning The Rev

    There will be no podcast today as a mark of respect for Robin’s and Thomas’ dear friend The Reverend Tim Hardingham who was tragically killed whilst riding his bike with his family on Sunday 25th October. Tim was a guest in episode 21 of our first season. Below are Thomas’s and Robin’s personal memories of…

  • Sparking a Debate: Physics CPD for Teachers

    Sparking a Debate: Physics CPD for Teachers

    I have been like a kid with a new Lego set this month, unpacking IOP Spark and building all sorts of imaginative lesson plans with the finely engineered building blocks on offer.  When I was in the classroom, this sort of link to the physics teaching nexus was invaluable, and from what you tell me,…

  • The Young Modulus – Instructions

    The Young Modulus – Instructions

    This is a way to determine the Young Modulus as an individual, rather than group practical. For years I thought that you needed a pulley for the wire, but it turns out you don’t. Without that limiting factor, it becomes a pfaff reducing exercise. Summary Get a plank of “whatever you can find” width, about…

  • Podcast Publish Fails

    Podcast Publish Fails

    I think I am getting a bit blasé about publishing, two fails in two weeks. ? When I create a Podcast Post I have to do three main jobs for the podcast to release properly: Upload and attach the mp3 Tell the Post when to go live (5:00am on the next term-time Thursday – an…

  • Links for Technicians

    We were contacted by Seamus Smith who told us about some more sites for Technicians. I have just slightly tweaked the site to have two more pages in the menu structure: Technician Sites and Physics Teaching Sites. One of the sites Seamus mentioned is TecHKnow which has a huge directory of sites, that makes our…

  • Physics Teacher Sites

    Physics Teacher Sites

    9th April 2019: This blog post has been recreated as a Page: “Physics Teaching Sites” and any future updates will be made there. A non-exhuastive list of sites that have been drawn to my attention since Episode 18, Spin, Shared Resources and Social Media. As I hear about more I will attempt to add them.…

  • Vacuum Cannon Tips

    Vacuum Cannon Tips

    After sending out a few cannons, I decided to send out a “Tips” sheet in the cannon packaging to help people get started. I’m reproducing it here for those who didn’t get it: Vacuum Cannon Tips The pipe suppliers are used to providing for large scale filtration systems. They care not about little nicks and…

  • Making a Vacuum Cannon

    The Tube The tube does not need to be super strong (the tape will fail long before the tube), but it does need to be close in diameter to a table-tennis ball (40mm). The right tube is known as Imperial 1½ inch PVC, common in the USA but not so much in the UK. I…

  • Selling a Vacuum Cannon

    Selling a Vacuum Cannon

    We are selling Vacuum Cannons in the shop. I am setting it up with some trepidation: if nobody buys one I will be several tens of pounds out of pocket. If everyone buys one I will be unable to make them fast enough to keep up with demand. Of course, the most likely thing is…

  • Using The Rope Model of Electricity

    Using The Rope Model of Electricity

    In the next podcast we inevitably talk about the rope model. I tried it a few times in the past and hated it ?. It was only in making the podcast that I finally understood how to do it and how good it is. Not knowing how to do it is as much a function…