The Dancing Disc - AstroMedia
Product number:
430.TSB
AstroMedia Kit for a large Leonhard Euler commemorative medal: complete with mirror platform on which it dances like a top for up to 1 1/2 minutes at increasing speed.
Who doesn't know this? If you give an upright coin a skilful push, it spins and spins faster and faster until it comes to a sudden halt with a splash. Thanks to its optimised properties, the dancing disc spins for a particularly long time and noisily.
Astro-Didaktik meets Leonhard Euler
This cardboard kit for a dancing disc is a bow to the ingenious mathematician Leonhard Euler and dedicated to his memory. It was he who first summarised the spinning process in several mathematical formulae, the Euler equations.
A coin that spins and spins and spins
The dancing disc is considerably larger and heavier than an ordinary coin. In addition, the side edges of the disc have been optimised so that friction losses are particularly low. That is why it spins all the longer and more impressively. Professionals can make the disc oscillate for over 2 minutes. The kit includes a round mirror that is slightly curved inwards and thus helps the stainless steel disc not to move too far away from the centre during its dance.
The principle
Give the dancing disc a good push. Due to its weight, it tilts a little more with each revolution, becomes faster and louder in the process. To put it simply, the disc gains the energy needed for the ever faster dance from the approach of its centre of gravity to the base surface: At the beginning, it is straightened up, and the force needed for this is in the disc as potential energy ("position energy"). This is released when the disc tilts, and it is converted into rotational movement energy.
Product information "The Dancing Disc - AstroMedia"
Cardboard kit for the enclosure of the mirror
2 stickers made of brass foil to stick on the coin
Diameter of the disc: 7.5 cm
Height of disc: 1.3 cm
Weight of disc: 433 g
Diameter of mirror: 20 cm
What else you need for assembly
> a firm, flat work surface
> a sharp cutter knife, e.g. the craft knife
> a good all-purpose glue, e.g. craft glue
> some fine sandpaper, e.g. the sand sheet craft file
> some spirit to clean the glass and the mirror
> a sharp pair of scissors