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Florida Trip, 2000: Synergy in
Science YES! Seminar
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| The most popular YES! Seminar today,
Tuesday February 15th, was by far Synergy in
Science. Synergy in Science helped students
explore the way things work through combined
processes by exploring Epcot and its rides, both
backstage and onstage. Participants (I was one of
them) rode Body Wars and then made hypotheses as
to how it works. We then went behind the scenes
and found out how it worked. The room we were in
to ride Body Wars was twenty feet off the ground
and was supported by four hydraulic lifts. These
could expand and contract to tilt the room. It was
the same system that pilots use to train for
flying in a Boeing 747. Each flight simulator cost
$1 billion. The synergy that was demonstrated to
us through this ride was the synchronization of
the hydraulic lifts and the movie that was shown
within the room. |
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| We then learned a little bit about
lasers and fiber optics. More synergy in science
was demonstrated to us by explaining the
combination of telephones and fiber optic cables.
The principle was demonstrated to us by using a
code. One person was given a word. He told the
letter to be encoded to the next person. That
person encoded the letter into two numbers. He
told those numbers to the next person, who then
flashed a flashlight the number of times given
through a tube. The next person decoded the
letter, and the next person wrote it down. This
represented the binary system used by a phone.
Finally, we rode Honey, I Shrunk the Audience.
This ride demonstrated synergy by showing the
combination of two film projectors to give the
illusion of a 3D picture. More than synergy,
however, this ride showed the scientific process.
We made a hypothesess, experimented, and made
conclusions. Synergy in Science demostrated two
main themes to us: the scientific method, and
technological symbiosis. It encorporated these two
themes together into a way that was very
enjoyable, and everyone had a great time. |
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