06x05 - New England

[bunniefuu]

It's Dragonfly TV's all access pass to an

engineering-orama. We're designing

chain reactions, spraying

H2O, and building robots.

Major funding for Dragonfly TV is

provided by the National

Science Foundation, supporting

education and research across all fields

of science and engineering. The

National Science Foundation. where

discoveries begin.

PBS has been inspiring new ideas and

creativity for generations of bright

young minds. Arby's, proud sponsor of

Dragonfly TV and PBS.

It's Dragonfly TV, Dragonfly

TV

Hey, I'm Eric. We've just arrived at



degrees west. I'm in the

oldest public park in America.

Sports fans are proud of their team's

back-to-back Super Bowl championships.

This region is known for its fresh

lobster,

Nor'easters, and the green

monster.

We're in New England.

New England is made-up of six states.

Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire,

Connecticut, and the two we're visiting

today, Vermont and Massachusetts.

Boston is famous for tea and the

tea. The Boston Tea Party started the

American Revolution. And the other tea?

Well, it's the country's very first

subway. There are a few other

firsts, too. Ballpoint pen, railroad,

World Series, public park, rubber,

telephone, sandpaper, volleyball game,

Chocolate Factory, first post office,

frozen food, microwave, lighthouse,

YMCA, marathon, stadium, ski

lift, Public Library, public high school,

the first college typewriter, minting

press, Morse code, sewing machine, public

beach, bike factory, liquid fuel, rocket

and the first chocolate chip cookie. Just

to name a few, of course.

Vermont is the only New England state

without a coastline. It's the land of

maple syrup. They produce



That's almost enough maple syrup to fill

an Olympic-sized pool. We'll

splash around in Vermont later on, but

first, we're here at the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology. Let's meet

Ellie, Nick, Linnea, and John. Their

average age is only 12, but they're

already in at MIT.

That's me at the Fat Chain Reaction event

put on by the MIT Museum in Boston.

Fat stands for Friday after Thanksgiving.

Each team makes their own chain reaction

that connects to another team's on each

end to create one giant chain reaction.

My dad and I have done it for a couple of

years, but this year I needed a whole new

team. So I asked Ellie, who's done it

before, to work with me. It'll be a lot

of fun to make another chain reaction,

but John and I need more help. So we each

asked a friend to join our team. I'm

John's friend Nick. And I'm Linnea, and

we're ready to start building. Shotgun!

No way! I told you a long time ago. We

went to the MIT Museum to get ideas for

our own chain reaction. The museum is

filled with cool things made by engineers

and scientists at the Massachusetts

Institute of Technology. Hey, look at

that. Jeez. It's like a chair on a beam.

Let's go. Look, Arthur

Gansen. Wow, guys, look at this.

We looked at moving sculptures made by

Arthur Gansen, the founder of the Fat

Chain Reaction event. It's like a chain

reaction because when this motor starts,

it not only starts to turn this, but it

also branches off at the end over there.

Oh, there it is, right there. See that

one's moving?'Cause it's pulling that one

in. See it?Yep. Oh, my gosh.

Isn't that great?Wow, this is the

perfect place to get ideas. Yeah,

definitely.

The

first thing we did was figure out a team

name. The Fat

Four.

Before we started building, we reviewed

the fat chain reaction rules. Each team's

link must begin and end with a string

pull, and it has to be repeatable,

meaning it should work over and over

again.

Why don't we figure out what each part of

our chain reaction is, how it's going to

work?What if we had like first the

dominoes and then when

the dominoes finished?Oh,

and hit the mousetrap. I think it would

actually be really cool if we could find

a way to direct the force that comes out

of the diet soda and mint so that it

actually does something. I don't know

what would set this off, but when it hits

that... sh**t it out?Yeah, to sh**t a

straw out. After some brainstorming, we

agreed that our chain reaction would have

three main sections: falling dominoes,

a soda and mints eruption, and firing a

straw rocket. Two. You know

what to do. We wanted to

sh**t a straw to trigger something, so we

did some tests to find out what kind of

straw and launcher would give us the best

results. Fire! We set up a weight that

would fall on the launcher to fire the

rocket. Not so good. Fire. Well,

that was long. Yeah. Nice. That was much

better. Our tests showed that the long

straw and turkey baster would give us the

longest flight. Now we are off to our

next step, the soda and mints eruption.

Very impressive. To control a soda

reaction, we connected the bottle to a

tube so it would sh**t through to fill

another bottle and trigger the next step

in our chain reaction. I can see the mint

right there. It looks like-- I wonder if

that's clogging anything.

Later, we'll use the tubing to spell our

team name, FAT4.

To make sense of our work so far, we drew

a diagram of how the whole chain reaction

will work together. String pulls,

dominoes fall, tip over the soda, go

through the tubing, empty into this,

weight it down to hit the mousetrap, to

drop the wrench to sh**t the arrow out.

Ball rolls, hits the bell, mocks it off,

pulls the string for the next one.

Gotcha. With a picture of how it

should work, we started putting our chain

reaction together. We decided to

sh**t the straw through a tube to be sure

it would hit the target. So the

mousetrap's going to be, like, right here?

Yeah, maybe a little farther back. Fire!

We need to find a way so it can stop

spinning. The swinging of the soda bottle

made the whole table shake, so we needed

to figure out a way to control its fall.

That would work. Yeah, that was good.

Okay. It didn't swim too much. Okay. Whoo!

Perfect. That's good. Right on the turkey

base. Yep.

What if we had something like a wire like

this?

You give your mints to me.

Yes. Let's give it a try. All right, here

it goes. Oh, it's filling, it's filling.

Our test run went pretty well. Here it

goes. Here it goes, here it goes, here it

goes. But we still have things to work

on, and only one day until the fat event.

Here it goes, oh wait, too late,

too late. Hands in for fat four. One,

two, three. Fat four.

Can they finish building in time?Will the

chain chain chain reaction work?The

excitement is k*lling me. The fat finale

is coming up. But first, our science

secret.

Boston has a secret, but the city's not

telling until the end of our show. The

ground I'm walking on used to be

underwater. How did that change?It's

today's science secret. Now back to our

MIT g*ng. Let's cheer them on and see if

their hard work paid off.

This cart. We only had a couple hours to

set up our chain reaction, do trial runs,

and get everything working properly.

Wait, John, remember it has to lift

through here. You don't want it too

close. Here, it's

going, it's going. So you guys want to

put something here just in case?We wanted

to make sure our chain reaction would

trigger the next one without a hitch.

That time we were lucky. Fail.

Good, that's good. Go.

It wasn't connected. The thing I'm most

worried about is is the wrench falling on

the turkey baster because it's been

successively not sh**ting or not sh**ting

far enough or... You know, not having

enough force to actually trigger the

mouse trap. One thing I'm really worried

about is, well, when the when the

wrench falls, it might knock something

out. We steady most of the stuff, but

just the bell might happen. Look at it,

it worked.

Here we go now. The gym was

filled with 48 teams chain reactions that

were all hooked together. Three,

two, one.

All the chain reactions were going well.

Then our string was pulled. The

string pull knocked over our dominoes,

which triggered the mints and soda

eruption, ran through our Fat

Four tubing. Oh, look at that. That's

beautiful. It's just riding Fat Four.

Which then filled another bottle, which

triggered the weight firing our straw

rocket, which released the pool ball.

which dropped the ball and pulled the

next team's string. It

worked. It worked perfectly. That's

That's wonderful. Thanks for being a part

of it. Yeah, yeahYou have fun?

Yeah, it's awesome. Can you do

it again?Yep. Excellent.

Fat four. The end.

Way to go, guys. Their hard work really

paid off. Have you figured out

Boston's science secret?How did land

that was once underwater become a

neighborhood?Before you answer that, it's

time for Mr. Roboto.

Artificial intelligence means that robots

are programmed to act like humans.

Here's a scientist who's designing very

smart robots with personality.

Like me.

Let's go! I'm

Cynthia. I'm a robot designer. Actually,

I'm Cynthia.

This is my office. When I was a kid, I

got into robotics because I was really

inspired by Star Wars. I have this R2D2.

I think it's fabulous. Those were the

first robots that in many ways were like

full-fledged characters. They were

emotional. They had personality. They

were companions to the humans. The first

sociable robot that I built was

called Kismet. But wait, there's more.

Kismet had a really expressive face for a

robot that was really kind of. Knew the

notion of a real robot in real life

with an expressive face that used that

face for communication with people

in a way that was very natural.

This is our robot, Leonardo. This is a

collaboration with Stan Winston, who's

this very famous animatronic designer in

Hollywood. He did the dinosaurs in

Jurassic Park and the robots in

Terminator going

into the lab. The first thing you see

here is a shelf full of a bunch of toys.

These actually aren't children's toys.

They're actually Leonardo's toys. Leo,

this is Elmo. Can you find Elmo?

Leonardo's all about character and

personality, and it's all about the

interpersonal interaction between people

when we start communicating with each

other. From infancy, so much of that

early communication is based around

emotions. It's much more like

a dance.

Both of my parents were scientists, so I

mean, in many ways it's no surprise that

I ended up being a scientist myself. I

always took school really seriously

because my parents, of course, took it

very seriously. I was really much more of

a jock, if anything, so I did a lot of

sports. I ended up coming. To MIT

and I worked for a professor named Rod

Brooks, who I didn't realize it at the

time, but was probably the most famous

robotics professor in the world. There

were all these insect like robots

scurrying around and it was like I just

snapped back to my childhood and I was

hooked. I was hooked from then on.

Technology is something that you create

to. improve the human condition to

contribute to a better quality of life

for for everyone. And that's really, you

know, the thing that really keeps us

going in the big sense is trying to make

that sort of big contribution. Very

good, gizmit. Crazy man.

Robots don't always have to look like

people. You might have a robot at home,

like a TiVo or a DVR, that's smart enough

to record your favorite TV shows. Thanks,

Anton. You're welcome. Enjoy it. New

England has a thriving seafood industry.

You'll taste some of the freshest seafood

in the world here. You just

have to learn how to get to it.

While I figure this out, you do it. It's

quick, it's easy, and it's fun.

Make a ball jump with air pressure.

You'll need two small glasses and a ping

pong ball. Set the two glasses next to

each other on a table. Put the ball in

the glass nearest you. Using a hard

puff of air, blow down on the side of the

ball. Watch the ball jump out of one

glass into the next one.

Now try it with a golf ball. Or how

about an egg?What

happened when you tried it?Tell other

do-it-ers on our website. I've

got myself a bowl of fast and clam

chowder. Now

that is wicked good. Maybe I'll try it

with some kind bread. Surf on

over to the Dragonfly TV website at

pbskidsgo.org. Stream a

cool DFTV video, play an awesome

game, or try a surprising Duet. And don't

forget to tell us what you're doing with

science. We want to hear from you.

Boston equals brain power, and

this area has more colleges and

universities than any city in the world.

And these kids are getting a head start

at the Boston Museum of Science.

Check, check, check, check it out.

I like coming to the clubhouse because it

has a very positive environment. It

allows me to do things that I can't do in

other places. I always like to go on the

computer at home. Now coming here, it

like takes it to the next dimension. I

love to create and give

motion to that sprite. You're a

star, you're a star, you're a very big

star nowI'm

making a project

that has a man and a woman, and I like

them because it they get to move and

talk, and you get to do all these things

with them. It's really fun. I made this

virtual pet. If you click one of the

links, he does what you tell him or

her. I have a blue house with a

blowing dog

I like building the cars and

going on the computer and programming

everything. They get to explore their

interests. They get to familiarize

themselves with where the future is

taking them.

The Boston Museum of Science is just one

place to find awesome summer or

after-school science clubs. The Mantra

Museum is another. It's time to slide up

to Vermont and jump in the water with our

Wet and Wild science stars, Chloe and

Jessie.

I'm Jessie! Stop,

Chloe!

Isn't water the best?

We love everything about the water.

You don't need the Whirlpool event! It

feels great! But with the water falling

from higher up, it's always too small.

Whoa! What if it could control a

waterfall, like a shower or a bathtub?

That would be cool! That made me think of

the fountains at Montshire Museum Science

Park. They've made it easy for kids to

try things out with water.

The Montshire has a cool indoor museum.

I think the turtle's still in there.

Wait, Chloe, look at this.

That is so cool. Look at that. It looks

like clouds. I bet you can see my house

from here. Oh,

no. Outside, there's a two-acre science

park filled with lots of fun exhibits.

Let's check this stuff out.

The fence in my yard doesn't do this.

Look, now I'm a gnomen. She means the

arrow on sundial. Her shadow says it's

three o'clock. The

water flows through a park in a thing

called a rill. She means a small

barker stream. The water exhibits are

great. Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! Look

at that one! You can make water dancing

with your hands. Or you can make a dam

with bricks.

At the end of the rail, water shoots out

and hits the ground at different

distances, and we wondered why the water

flowing from the lower holes went farther

than from the higher holes. We decided to

keep looking around. But what's happening

over here with these fountains?They seem

to be broken. The water to these

fountains comes from the rail above them.

The water runs down these holes to feed

the fountains. Why don't we try damming

them up and see what happens?The flow of

water down the rail is controlled by a

dam that can be turned off and on using

this handle. I definitely see a

difference. Yeah, it seems to be working

a lot better. What happens if we put some

of these bricks on to make the dam even

higher?Whoa!

No safe bricks! All right, let's try this

again. No! So, it looks like

the fountains have gone up. They

definitely have. So I guess that means

that the higher the water is above those

holes, the higher the fountains go. Well,

that's cool, because it all happens with

the water level rising, not because of a

pop. So I guess that means that the

higher the water level, the more pressure

there is at the bottom, which causes the

fountain to way higher. I

wonder how we can make the highest

fountain ever without using a fountain.

The fountains at our favorite water park

are powered by big pumps.

We want to make a fountain without one.

We decided to head home and build our own

fountain to figure things out. And before

we left, we got some nozzles and clamps

from the museum.

We snag some soda bottles and set up

outside with the hose and bucket, plus

our tubing and nozzles.

So we're going to take this bottle and

connect it to a tube to make a fountain.

Yeah, but how can we change how far the

water goes?Well, there's only so much

space in the bottle, and we can't put

more water in. So why don't we try and

change the height of the bottle above the

nozzle, and that might help. Kind of like

making the water higher at the museum's

rail. So the bottle is the tanker

reservoir. We cut the bottom off so we

could pour the water in. Then we

connected tubing to the bottle opening.

Next, we connected the other end to a

nozzle to create the fountain spray. So

we're gonna put the water in this bottle

and then see how far it shoots out. But

it might be hard to see how far it shoots

out if it's sh**ting straight up. Well,

it might be easier, instead of sh**ting

straight up, to sh**t at an angle, and

then we can measure it.

We used a ruler to make sure the nozzle

was six inches above the ground,

and a measuring tape to measure the

height of the bottle above the nozzle.

That's fine. Go ahead. The

paper towel lets us see how far the water

spray is so we can measure it afterward.

We did four tests for each of our heights

above the nozzle. One foot above the

nozzle, two feet above the nozzle, three

feet above the nozzle, and four feet

above the nozzle. Okay, let go.

Whoa! Two feet

and 11 and a half inches.

All right, go ahead. Whoa! Wow!

That went really far.

We calculated the average for each

height, and our data told us that the

higher the reservoir was above the

nozzle, the farther the fountain spray

would go. So we tried having the

reservoir at different heights. And I

wonder what would happen if we used

different-sized nozzles. Ooh, maybe we'd

even get a longer fountain with a

different-sized nozzle. Let's do it.

Longer. So we decided to do some more

tests while keeping the bottle at one

height, four feet above the nozzle, but

trying some nozzles of different widths,

wider and narrower. We tested each of

these nozzles three times.

That went just a little past the rock. Go

ahead. Whoa!

Look how far that went.

This graph shows us that the higher the

water is above the nozzle, the further

the fountain sprays. Maybe that means

there's more water pressure down at the

nozzle when the bottle is held higher up.

Like at the waterfall, remember how heavy

the water was hitting you?Yeah, that must

have been gravity working. The water

falling a shorter distance didn't hit us

as hard. Our nozzle data is pretty clear.

The bigger the nozzle, the firer the

spray goes. And now that we know two ways

of making a fountain, do you want to try

for a really big one?Do you remember that

high bridge back at the science park?Why

don't we try for a 20 foot spray?We

headed back to the museum to make our

giant fountain. This is going to be

so cool. OK,

our reservoir is about 35 feet up.

So how far will the water sh**t using an

eighth of an inch nozzle?Well, it's about

eight times higher than our bottle was

above the nozzle. And that bottle scored

it up three feet. So this one might sh**t

up to about 24 feet.

Greg, turn your mouth on. All right, here

it comes. Here it goes. Whoo!

This is amazing.

We're the fountain champions of theworld.

I knew science could be this fun. Have

you figured out the answer to the science

secret?Well, here it is.



man-made land. Where did the

land come from?

Here's more.

I am Captain PJ. I get tours of Boston on

this World w*r II amphibious vehicle. The

landmass of original Boston, the original

peninsula, has tripled over the last



Hill out there, and then you can watch it

kind of flatten out all the way through

the city. That's how landfill. Back Bay

is technically about 450 acres of

landfill. original peninsula that Boston

was built on actually had three hills on

it. Pemberton Hill, Mount Vernon Hill,

and Beacon Hill. They completely leveled

Pemberton and Mount Vernon and then cut



some of the land for the landfillproject.

Basically, train cars ran every



years, bringing land into Boston to fill

it in. The whole reason they landfilled

Back Bay in the first place was because

it was all mud flaps, and they were

exposed to the air, andYou can imagine

that smelled pretty bad. So they covered

it over with land, just basically to get

the smell to go away. Daddy Water of

Boston, USA!

What science secrets are in your city?Our

website is your website. So log on. We

want to visit your city.

Surf on over to the Dragonfly TV website

at pbskidsgo.org. Tell us what

you're exploring in science museums where

you live. We want to hear from you. Want

to watch Dragonfly TV again?You can

download videos of everything you see on

our show. Coming up on

Dragonfly TV G PS:.

Pack your bags for next time on Dragonfly

TV G PS:.

This place was wicked cool. But it's off

to another D Fly destination. Until next

time, my friends, all hands to hoist

sail, you scallywags.

Punch your back and do it.

Major funding for Dragonfly TV is

provided by the

National Science Foundation, supporting

education and research across all fields

of science and engineering. The

National Science Foundation, where

discoveries begin.

PBS has been inspiring new ideas and

creativity for generations of bright

young minds. Arby's, proud sponsor of

Dragonfly TV and PBS.