Physics 2E Honors Project: Rain Detector

Hello! This is a project I made for my Physics 2E Honors class. For the spring honors project, we were given several options—writing a research paper, creating a poster board, making a video on something related to the field of electronics, or building a prototype. I enjoy hands-on learning, so I chose to build something. Here is the rain detector I created!

Due to a lack of laboratory supplies and the fact that this is a prototype, the circuit sits inside a cracker box, and the detector sits atop a mini cardboard box. Realistically, the circuit would be shrunk down and nestled in a durable container, and the telephone cable would be longer to allow the detector portion to be placed on a rooftop. But the cracker box served me well.

These two videos illustrate the rain detector in action. Since replicating a rainstorm would have been a bit messy,  “rain drops” were dispensed from a dropper to simulate the same situation.

And here is a close-up of the part of the circuit that actually comes in contact with the raindrops. I did not have access to copper wire, so with a little time and effort, I took the thin copper wires from a telephone cable and twisted them together. There are two separate copper wires running across the circuit board. When a rain drop bridges two adjacent wires, the circuit makes a beeping sound. The beep speed can be adjusted by changing the value of the capacitors in the circuit (on breadboard, inside the cracker box).

Here is an aerial view of the rain detector.

Here is a side view. The speaker is sticking out of the cracker box, right where the “Nutrition Facts” are printed.

Here is the other side view. The yellow pointed pieces of cardstock serve as “clasps” as to allow viewers to see the inside of the prototype.

The cracker box opens up to reveal the guts of the rain detector (a.k.a. inner circuitry). Here’s an inside look at the breadboard.

Realistically, the detector would be placed on the roof, like so! House, chimney, rain detector, and sheep not to scale!

O'Henry the Calculus Octopus

This is a project that my friend and I made for AP Calculus BC. The assignment: to construct a solid by gluing together foam cross-sections on top of a base shape.  We chose an oval base, with square cross-sections. In addition, we were to find the volume of the solid by taking the integral of the area of one cross-section.


After constructing the solid, we had some scrap foam left over, and with a bit of inspiration, the "solid" became a "creature". Behold...

O'Henry the Calculus Octopus. With sparkly tentacles! He comes with a story too:

O'Henry likes to do his calculus homework at the beach.

With the seagulls.

Here is O'Henry showing all his work, just as a good math student does. But suddenly, it became EXTREMELY sunny, and...

...BAM! O'Henry fainted from all that sunlight.

Poor octopus. But he recovered and did, in fact, finish his problem set!

Here is an aerial view of O'Henry.

And here is a back view.

And here is the approximate volume of O'Henry the Calculus Octopus, exclusive of tentacles and flag.

Constructing O'Henry, doing the math, and then taking the foam octopus for a photo shoot made for an interesting experience. And O'Henry enjoyed the waves too!