The final phase of the students' project was, of course, the presentation itself. The student research teams spent the morning and afternoon of Day Five graphing the data they had collected and preparing written reports on their materials, methods, and conclusions to accompany their oral presentations. Each presentation was also accompanied by a round of questions, in which the students considered possible sources of error and ways these experiments could be improved in the future.

In the end, some projects supported the students' initial theories, and in some cases the data produced results the students had not expected. But in every case, the students ended their Voyage of Discovery with a greater understanding of the natural world around them. Suffice to say, each research team impressed their senior advisors with the quality of their work.

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Research Team 1: Celestial Tracking

Students: Amanda, Bibi, Karl & Monet
Senior Crew Advisors: Miles Garfinkel & Jennifer Reilly
Guiding Question: Does the sun really rise in the east and set in the west?
Materials: Quadrant, directional compass, watch.

Conclusion: After tracking the sun from dawn to dusk over the course of two separate days, the Celestial Tracking team determined that the common wisdom that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west is not entirely accurate. Their experiment found that (since we are located in Earth's northern hemisphere) the sun maintained a southerly bearing throughout the day, rising in the southeast and setting in the southwest. In fact, by tracking the sun to the moment it reached the highest point (or zenith) in its arc across the sky, they were able to determine local noon. The sun's compass bearing (or azimuth) at that moment marks the direction of true south.

Students: Erica, Kelsey, Roberto & Solange
Senior Crew Advisors: Anthony Roy & Woody Woodworth
Hypothesis: The force needed to lift an object will decrease as more pulleys are added to the machine, and this difference in force will depend on the length of line pulled through the rig.
Materials: Block-and-tackle simple machine, lead weight, spring scale, tape measure, adhesive tape.

Conclusion: The team's hypothesis was proved essentially correct. As the team added leads to their block-and-tackle rig, the force required to lift the weight decreased, but the length of the line pulled through the machine (the distance) increased. Interestingly, as you can see on the graphs below, the distance increased at a steady, predictable rate, but the force proved less predictable — dropping at first, then beginning to rise again with the addition of a fifth pulley. In effect, what the team found was the difference between the theoretical and practical results of mechanical advantage. In theory, the force needed to lift a given weight should be evenly divided by the number of leads (for a general example, if takes four students to lift Mr. Roy using one lead, it should take just one student when using four leads). In practice, however, each pulley added to the simple machine adds friction to the system. After an initial benefits, the friction generated by multiple pulleys quickly overwhelms the advantage gained, imposing a physical limit on the machine's effectiveness.

Research Team 3: Statistical Analysis

Students: Claudio, Daniel, Teara & Wilberto
Senior Crew Advisors: Stephanie Bisson & Ralf Hensel
Guiding Question: What are the bearings of three fixed objects, as measured with two types of compass, and will there be a difference between trained and untrained results?
Materials: Two hand-held directional compasses ("pistol grip" and "hockey puck"), Half Moon crew members.