The EE is a major project for IB students so it's a good idea to get the bulk of the research done in he summer holiday. Better still, get the complete first draft done. If this is going to happen it is important for the supervisor to be in contact with the students. I have had several cases where students return with flawed practical work that can not be repeated because the apparatus is at home. One student made a mini pool table with an insert that spun the balls before being hit. He did video analysis on the path of the balls to measure how much they swerved with different spin velocities. The problem was that the camera was not over the table but placed to one side and he did not record the angle, this made it impossible to analyse the data.

This year I have 5 students working at home. Alex, in Ecuador, is measuring the affect of different powders on the friction between his hand and a moving surface. The way he is doing this is by slowing down a spinning bicycle wheel with his hand. The bicycle is placed on bathroom scales to measure the Normal force and video is used to measure the acceleration of the wheel.

Further south in Paraquay, Alejandra is measuring the thermal conductivity of meat as it gets cooked on the barbecue. The idea is to put the meat on a warm surface then measure the rate of change of temperature of a small container of water placed on top of the it. The aim is to find out which conducts heat best, raw meat or cooked meat. All the meat will of course be consumed after the experiment.

In Peru, yes the majority of my supervisees are from South America, Andres has been investigating the 2 dimensional oscillations of elastic pendulums both in reality and simulation.

On the other side of the world in Kenya, John has been working with magnets and Zolli has been visiting airports in Hungary but no photos from them yet.