Fun physics lab to do the first week of school?

Question

I wanted to do something where they get to design/engineer something and be creative. At the same time I want this to be a real lab that they can write a lab report for. These are high school seniors. The problem I'm having is that: 1) Archimedes Principle/design a barge with tin foil didn't work for me today (just at home testing it). tips? 2) Other labs I think of they will need more background knowledge in physics. 3) The cool lab I know of that shows why the sky is blue I already did with the kids when I had to do a sample lesson interviewing.

ANY IDEAS WOULD BE APPRECIATED!! I'm getting pinned for time!!

Answer 1

Most of the time if you're going to do a lab the first week of school I usually see teachers do something that isn't complex.  Like I saw one where the teacher had a bunch of checks with purchases on them.  And each group got to pick out three checks and then infer info about the couple that wrote them.  Then they had to pick a 4th one, and see if it fit into their previous data or if they would have to adjust.  

If you want to do a content lab, then you need to decide what you're going to teach first.  If you're doing mechanics then it would probably be difficult to do a lab.  I'd suggest throwing a ball in the air and timing it to figure out how high it went.  

I've also done egg toss, and talk about force, acceleration, change in velocity/time and such.  

The best 1st day thing for physics I saw was a discrepant events where the teacher would set up 8 or so demos where the outcome was not known.  Like bouncing a ball off the floor so that it hits the bottom part of a desk.  Will it bounce backwards, keep bouncing off the ground and the table, or bounce out the other side of the desk?  Then the teacher made ABCD motions, (wave your right hand for A, pat your head and make a noise like a monkey for B...) and they would pick what would happen.  They set up some pulleys, and also did a what will happen to a slinky if you hold it from high up just from the top, and let go, what will the bottom do?  Will it stay for a second, then fall, rise up then fall or just fall immediately.