I’m required to do a school science fair project this year and I was hoping to do a model railroading-related project.
So I was wondering if I would be able to get some suggestions of problems that model railroaders often encounter that I could possible apply to a science fair project. Any suggestions you would have would be very helpful! Thanks! Acela
Spend about 30 minutes looking at the “Electronics and DCC” section of the forum and you’ll get enough “problems” encountered to satisfy many science projects. [(-D][(-D][(-D]
Oil is a big thing in North Dakota. Shipping oil by train can make an interesting project. Here is what a loading terminal looks like.
Today both loops are complete, sand for fracking arrives in the left loop and is trucked north to the oil fields. The right loop (it is four tracks) is oil heading to market. There is usually a line of 10 to 20 trucks on 115th Avenue waiting to unload. Trains seen here show up in New Jersey a few days later.
You do not need to model the loops for a school project, but you could show trains of sand coming in, trucks of sand going out, trucks of oil coming in and trains of oil going out. That is a lot of trains and trucks for a science project.
You could slant the nature of oil and fracking to fit your own socio-political model. Science is like that: You can bend it to prove whatever you think needs proving.
ROAR
What level are we talking about here. Is this elementary school where there can be demonstration or collection projects, or are we into the upper grades where the scientific method has to be properly applied?
What projects classifications are there available for the science project? Is this a normal ISEF science fair, TCCSA, ACSI, one of the Westinghouse ones, some other I’ve not heard of, or is it just a local school home rules? If so what are those categories and rules.
I asked that because an Engineering category is available for some fairs.
Several general possibilities -
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Track cleaning - which techniques and cleaning fluids work best in which environmental situation.
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Track cleaning - the cause and prevention of gunk.
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The Degradation of a DC locomotive motor performance running on a DCC system.
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Engineering for allowing scale equipment to navigate underscale tight curves.
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The science behind truck vs body mounted couplers, developing a formula for optimal length / weight of train for each.
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Tractive effort of scale models.
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Scaling the physics of a hump yard.
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Free wheeling and brakes on scale model trains.
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A mathematically designed tiny speaker enclosures for best base response.
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As the other poster suggested there are bunches dealing with DCC including - the ringing issue, optimal bus design, decoder communication, using back emf to (fill in the blank).
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Computing the ideal easement tracks for scale model trains.
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An analysis of the weight to friction ratio for smooth operation of scale model railroads considering&
An interesting project might be to do a DCC - Computer interface. To make it more interesting control the train through the computer with a camera mounted on the front of the train and the camera display on the computer screen.
Good luck
Paul
I am having a hard time imagining how model railroading could be the subject of a school science fair project.
What do you generally have in mind in this regard?
Rich
Why doesn’t a reversing loop just work “out of the box?”
To actually weigh a railcar in HO scale via a model of a prototype scale track. The complications of “scale weight”, how to adjust for the issue and have an actual working scale track with output that can be used on bills for example.
YOu could also develop another android phone interface.
Richard
You could also take this whole Thread with you and all the response’s,with a sub. title of,‘‘Communication,or lack,thereof’’. That’s reality.
Cheers,[D]
Frank
What I would like is a DCC system that was battery operated in HO. That would require a radio operated decoder and a dummy engine for tha batteries and decoder. This would eliminate all track pick up problems. Acharging system on a stretch of staging yard trackage or elsewhere could recharge the batteries as needed Preferably lithium ion.
seems like Texas Zephyr gave good advice. maybe the following will generate some ideas
unique to model railroading?
fixing a locomotive? (problem solving)
repowering a locomotive? (mechanical design, component replacement selection, evaluation)
building a hand-laid turnout? (mechanical skills)
building your own DCC decoder? (electronic design and firmware)
automating a layout (running trains on a schedule, route selection, train detection and signalling)
waybill scheduling (software)
designing an algorithm to switch cars (waybill) in the least amount of moves?
It would require some advanced thinking, but with sound-equipped locomotives becoming more popular;
How to tweek the current technology to improve on-board sound emitted from the smallish enclosures found in S, HO, and N scales. The answer may come from smart phone or tablet engineering, or maybe something more along what Bose does to get such great sound from comparatively small enclosures.
If that is too specific and limiting for you, how to clean the rails effectively and how best to retain them in that state. Problems with conductivity at the rail surface where the locomotives tires run is a recurring and elusive problem for far too many of us.
-Crandell
You could take sections of track from each manufacturer and expose them to a variety of conditions and stress tests and see how each holds up. You can expose the track to heat, humidity and cold. You can also drop a weight on it and see which one best stands up to impact.
I too am a bit unsure about what is supposed to be demonstrated in this science fair or how sophisticated it is expected to get, but a couple of topics strike me that could at least be the basis for studies or demonstrations of certain principles, presumably chemical in nature.
The first would be the nature of nickel silver, as in the stuff that makes up our rails, and why it seems resistant to certain solders or certain soldering methods – or to reverse the topic, what solders/fluxes/procedures are needed to solder copper wire to nickel silver.
The second would relate to paint and what is needed to make solvent based paints usable on styrene and other plastics – and why they work.
A non-chemical science fair type project with a model railroad theme would be to study and measure the amount of current drop involved with various gauges of wire used to wire layouts – with the proof of concept being in the poor performance of trains when undersized wire is used.
One topic that has interested and puzzled guys for years is the notion of scale weight. As Linn Westcott wrote years ago, and HO scale train doesn’t weight 1/87th of the prototype because the prototype might weight 87 tons. He assumed that scale weight would reflect the 3 dimensions of mass so 1/87 x 1/87 x 1/87 =
As others have noted things like inertia do not seem to scale down .
Dave Nelson
Perhaps a historical display. You could show how rolling stock has grown in size and changed in style from say the 1860’s to the 1900’s, to the 1940’s, and the 1980’s, and today.
Or, investigate train detection methods. We need to detect trains to operate grade crossing protection (ring bells, flash the crossbucks, lower the gates) and to operate block signals. Right now we use optical (train interupts a beam of light) magnetic (train carried magnets operate magnetic reed switches under the track, Twin-Tee (transistor circuit detects current drawn by train) and mechanical (train weight closes a switch or train pushes a micro switch closed).
Good luck. Give us a post to tell us how things worked out.
Every year my kids school has Science and Math fairs. One year a couple of kids showed a timesaver made with the wooden (Thomas type) railway stuff. It was by far the most popular thing at the fair. The next year I was surprised when they showed up with an HO scale one.
It was DC controlled and the line up to try it was long. Those who did it successfully got a CN pencil.
There are many really good railroad-related projects that are possible. Steel manufacturing, paper, iron ore shipping, coal processing (great for interior detail in a mine/breaker!), etc. The Pennsy had at least one iron ore dock with a complete loop (4 tracks none the less!), and a recent issue of Model Railroad Planning had a grain elevator dock with a complete loop with 42 degree curves (translates to 18" in HO, full scale).
A project that hasn’t been listed so far is bridge design. Have a sign explaining how bridges work, and have a model train setup with different types of bridges that the trains are running across.
S&S
Set up a stretch of straight track wired to a transformer for DC.
Nail the track to a length of board long enough for a diesel and some freight cars, maybe just over 8 feet, say 100 inches.
Arrange the board so that you can increase the grade to 1%, then 2%, then 3%, then 4%, etc. until the train can no longer make it up the grade.
Include a scientific discussion of gradient.
Rich
it’s amazing how stiff a piece of 3 x 3/4" foam becomes when a thin sheet of balsa (compression) is glued to the bottom and just strips of packing tape (tension) are applied on top. Stiff in one direction, flimsy in the other. Demonstrates the basics of bridge design (as well as spar design in aircraft wings).