My 10 supervisees all have a plan and mst have some experimental data so are ready to write their second reflections.

• The second is an interim meeting, in which you should be intellectually critical of the students' decisions to date and to advise them on the final steps to making a valid conclusion. However, it will probably be too late at this stage to amend the methodological approach.

Personally I think we are a bit early but I don't make these decisions. I have also made some comments for mange bac, here they are.

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Vega has sensibly combined his passion for surfing with his interest in physics to write an essay on the formation of big waves at Nazare, Portugal. So far he has had great success modeling the underwater canyon with a digital wave simulator, it will be interesting to see how it goes with a wave tank.

hamzah is extending his knowledge of projectile motion by investigating the 3D motion of a vibrating water jet. The water forms an interesting sine wave that he is analysing with video. There are many problems to solve both practically and in the theory but that just makes it more interesting.

Era is using an interesting approach trying to replicate what the ancient Greeks found out about the stars without Googling what they did. When she is done with that she will research what they actually did  and compare her results. Quite a novel approach.

Jet has a focused research question relating the spread of a jet of water in relation to the angle of projection. The hypothesis is that due to air resistance the large drops have a longer range than the small ones, the longer the range the greater is the spread. This has been confirmed using algadoo and experiment. What remains is to construct an iterative model to compare with. Once this has been done it will be plain sailing.

Nejra ended up with a topic that was quite different from her original idea but it has great potential. The question is do electrons migrate to the outside of a current carrying semi conductor as it is moved in a circle. The method is quite neat, a Hall probe is moved in a circle. If free electrons move to the outside (because there is no force holding them in a circle) a PD will be measured across the probe. The problem is that the Earths magnetic field causes the electrons to move (the Hall effect). This masks the effect of the rotation. However initial trials look hopeful.

Vihaan decided to extend what he did in his IA to research into the propagation of waves in stretched strings. How does the triangle made when a string is pulled back lead to a sine wave? Using the recently purchased slo-mo camera Vihaan will observe an measure the propagation of the wave. Using an iterative approach he will then attempt to build a model based on the equations for constant acceleration applied over small steps. This won't be easy but it should be possible.

Dickson has made a good start measuring the internal resistance of a simple DC generator at different speeds. The idea is that as the speed increases, the EMF will increase resulting in a greater current. This will cause the temperature of the coil to rise resulting in an increase in resistance. So far he has measure the internal resistance and found that it does indeed increase but he has so far not linked this to an increase in temperature.

Dharsh is investigating the acceleration of a steel ball as it approaches a Neodymium magnet. He is doing this analysis using the recently purchased slo-mo camera. Due to the non uniform magnetic field the theoretical model is rather complex however an iterative model should be possible and not too difficult.

Albert is investigating whether the lens equation applies to magnetic lenses. An oscilloscope is used to produce a circle on the screen by applying π/2 out of phase signals to the x and y plates (A lissajous figure). This is achieved using an LCR circuit. A Neodymium magnet is the used to focus the radiating electrons into a point. By moving the magnet the "lens" position is altered. By comparing this with a simple light experiment he hopes to show that the two are equivalent.

Emil took a long time deciding on his topic but has eventually decided to investigate the damped harmonic motion of a floating cylinder. So far he has experimented with different liquids and has a workable set up,now the fun starts, trying to develop a mathematical model. Hopefully he will come up against some trick problems to solve.

I think there could be some excellent essays this year, I am a least enjoyin working with the students.