Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

This is the third day that I’m talking about the Interactive Science Exhibit for Innovation Week. So far we have been encouraged by the participation of some students who have been inspired to submit more than one entry.

The pair who passed the electromagnetic loop also submitted a plastic file case, which has also been made into a portable boom box. The case was transparent so that the components, including the small pocket radio inside that the speakers were attached to, was also visible. The only thing wrong with it was that for practical use only one or two folders could be placed inside it and still be able to close the case.

There was a larger speaker on one of the tables, but I did not know what it was for. That is the problem with no marshals around the lobby so that we do not know who left what there. It’s the students’ problem though, because they would not be credited for any work unless they informed the teacher about it.

Deiv, who has been pestering my co-teacher with consultation about his potential submission last term especially about increasing the thousand-peso limit on spending (after all, tight budget is one of the mothers – if that’s possible - of invention, along with laziness and necessity), finally brought out his experiment, which was on water filtration, based on another hand-me-down from the Executive Vice President: a clear tank with a crack at the bottom.

For my mechanics classes on the last meeting of the fourth week and the second day of the Innovation Week, I gave them the chance to come up with impromptu entries, just telling them to make water clocks from two plastic bottles.

The results were better than I expected, because the students came up with more improvements than I had initially thought.

For one thing, several attempts with one small hole in the bottle cap (and a large hole in the other) did not allow the water to drip to the bottom (empty) chamber, so at least two holes were needed.

Another, instead of marking the time based on the level of water in the bottom chamber, wrote on the lines depending on how low the height in the upper bottle was. At least people didn’t have to stoop to look at the time.

But the best addition that I’ve seen from my two classes was one group that placed two straws in the bottles to facilitate the air going up and the water going down. And they did have the smoothest one-minute transition, where the surface of the water did not churn and bubble.

For the third day the guy who did the glass jar demonstrations also brought potatoes, soft drinking straws, magnets and iron filings mixed in with dirt and soil. This was because by the second day some of the Integrated School audience he had was already second-guessing his “tricks”.

Hopefully this is the last post on the Exhibit, although I won’t be surprised if it isn’t, considering that even my classes have taken a back seat to it. Class dismissed.