Shake Shake Shake

I was in the office after lunch talking with my coworker. Then the building started to shake bad. We are on the top floor of the building. I took a look down the hall and saw everyone coming out of their office. The shaking stopped. I ran back into my office, pulled my computers out of the wall, and hurried to the stairwell leading down.

Everyone else was doing the same as me. There were many people on the stairwell. We were backed up all the way up to the 4th floor. I was thinking that these people had better move before we get an aftershock or another earthquake. Eventually I got to the bottom. The guy in my office asked me to wait for him outside so he could make sure I made it out alive. Silly guy. I told him to hurry down and worry about everyone else later.

Most people were just standing around outside the building. I got in my car and headed home. I thought about whether I should chance it and drive on the highway. Fate made the decision for me. It was early, but the highway was all backed up. I took the back roads home. There were not many signs of the earthquake at home. Some thing that were standing up fell down in the house. No real damage was done. I waited for the rest of the family to get home to see how they fared during the 5.9 Richter scale earthquake.

Rocking New Penny!

I was jolted out of bed early this morning (sometime around 5 am). I just thought I had a nightmare or something but it was actually a 3.7 earthquake.

At school we did a lot of experiments, we put a peep in a vacuum (less pressure) and the thing got huge. We poured out a gas (CO2). My favorite experiment was using a dropper.

First we had to fill a test tube to the tippy top and then add drops of water. How many drops do you think we were able to get on the top? Next we took an old and new penny (tail side) and added drops until they spilled over. How many drops do you think we added?

Answers will be posted after in comments.

All Shook Up

This afternoon I got back to work from lunch and started reading a document for review. The guy in my room left to see another coworker. Then I felt myself shaking back and forth. I thought it might be my chair gone bad. So I stood up. No it was not the chair. The whole building was shaking.

Then it happened again. The building started shaking. That's all I needed. I grabbed my computer and briefcase. Then I ran down the steps. I peeked into a room with a bunch of coworkers and told them they should bolt as well. Outside I saw a lady that works with me. She did not even stop to gather her computer or personal things. She just ran down the stairs and was waiting outside.

I saw some unwise people using the elevator. Come on folks. Do you really want to get trapped in there? I had to leave my Pepsi open on my desk. With my hands full walking down 5 flights of stairs, there was no way to hold on to my soda. Better a flat soda tomorrow than a flat cat if the building falls down. I am not sure if this was a small earthquake or some building integrity issues. All I know is that I was not sticking around to find out. Tomorrow I will test the waters and see if the building is stable. If I feel even one tremor, I am moving out of the building for good.

Science Fair

Little Kat needed to do some work for his science fair project. His idea was to test if building shape affects how well it can stand an earthquake. Here was the setup. Little Kat would create buildings out of sugar cubes. He would then put them on a box that was shaken by being on a treadmill. He would count how many sugar cubes fell down. That way he could figure measure the damage they took from a simulated earth quake.

Little Kat had grand plans to build his first built with about 150 sugar cubes. He could not get the building to stand up. Once he got to the third level of the building, the cubes kept falling down. Little Kat had to revise his design. He would create buildings that used about 20 sugar cubes. These he could erect quickly. But these were too sturdy and would not fall apart even when the treadmill was set to its highest level.

Finally Little Kat had to design buildings that would actually fall apart. He knew to make the buildings skinny and tall. We still only got one of them to fall down during the test run. Little Kat came up with a weird pentagon shaped building that fell apart when the treadmill started going fast. Good luck Little Kat in your science fair activities. I know you will have a lot to talk about with the judges.