© Mark Ollig
In April 1972, I participated in the annual science fair held at Holy Trinity school in Winsted.
“Revolution of the Planets” was the name of my science fair project.
Yes, my project featured the planets orbiting our sun.
I needed to create an attention-grabbing artificial solar system with nine planets and a sun.
The two sources of my research were the school library and the World Book encyclopedias at home (no Google in 1972).
The display for this project required a sturdy cardboard box sprayed with black paint on the inside and out.
I glued multicolored glitter sparkles on the interior, representing the stars.
Next, I cut a hole in the back of the box for the sun (yellow light bulb).
Remember, folks; This was 50 years and four months ago when I was just a youngster.
What would I use to support the nine planets (various-sized Styrofoam balls) going around the sun?
My mother suggested round metal lamp rings (lampshade cover fitting).
Since lampshade metal rings were of various sizes, I needed to find nine that would represent the orbital path of each planet around the sun.
Where did I find the correctly sized rings?
At the Winsted Worn-A-Bit Shop.
There, I found the correct sizes of all nine round metal lampshade rings needed to hold my planets as they orbited the sun.
The first inner ring supported Mercury, and the ninth outer ring held Pluto.
I securely tied each ring using thin black strings fastened to the box.
Years later, I learned mom kept an eye out to be sure I didn’t go around the house removing all the lampshade rings.
My science project’s sun was a low-wattage yellow bulb powered by a desk lamp (no lampshade cover), its base positioned horizontally, and its electrical cord plugged into a handy nearby wall outlet.
Many of the students’ projects required electrical outlets, which were in high demand during the science fair.
The completed “Revolution of the Planets” solar system display contained sparkling light from the glittering stars, nine planets, and yellow sunlight.
In reality, as seen in space, the sun appears white; Earth’s atmosphere causes the sun to look yellow, orange, and red.
On the morning of the science fair, which took place in the school gymnasium, I finished setting up my project on a card table with a “Revolution of the Planets” banner over my artificial solar system.
I included typewritten summaries of each planet and a poster of them orbiting the sun.
Overall, I felt pleased with this “artificial solar system in a box” sitting on the table.
Charles DeVos was in charge of the school science fair and stopped by to check on each student’s project.
Mr. DeVos was also my eighth grade social studies teacher.
I remembered him smiling while peering into my science fair solar system box containing sparkling stars, a glowing yellow sun, and nine orbital rings, each with a planet attached.
Mr. DeVos jokingly complimented me on not missing any of the planets.
Later in the morning, the science fair judges stopped by my project display and asked me questions about the planets and their orbit around the sun.
The end of the 1972 Winsted Holy Trinity Science Fair found the judges awarding my science project the first place blue ribbon.
“Revolution of the Planets” (with several improvements and modifications) would next travel to Mankato State University to compete in the Mid-Minnesota State Science Fair.
There, I received an honorable mention ribbon, which I was happy with, given the quality of the competition among hundreds of other science fair projects.
In 1972, astronomers considered Pluto the ninth planet in our solar system.
By the early 2000s, a scientific discussion began about whether Pluto was a planet.
In 2006, Caltech researcher Mike Brown reclassified Pluto as a “dwarf planet,” which triggered a vigorous debate that continues to this day.
NASA describes a planet as “… a celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.”
For the record, I still consider Pluto a planet.
It takes 248 years for Pluto to make one revolution or orbit around the sun.
It has been reported the time it takes the earth to travel around the sun is increasing due to our planet’s minimal distance increase of one micron (one-millionth of a meter) with each orbit.
The Kepler space observatory, other ground-based telescopes, and the 32-year-old earth-orbiting Hubble space telescope have discovered more than 5,000 exoplanets (planets outside our solar system).
As the new James Webb Space Telescope looks throughout the universe, we can expect to find and learn more about the planets outside our solar system.
With all this reminiscing, the youngster inside me needs to search for a 50-year-old first-place blue ribbon awarded for “Revolution of the Planets.”
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| "Revolution of the Planets" (April 1972) |