24/09/2026
Report of our weekly Science orientation session of 19th September. We conduct this every week and participants write reports of the session. Exceptionally good ones are posted here in our fb page. We call them as "Planet Class" reports. Even better ones, the Sol Class reports feature in our website. Annually, the highest number of Planet Class or Sol Class report authors get rewarded. (The report written by the kids do not come straight to our database. It first goes to our senior member Riddhi. A Ph.D fellow at Chennai IIT. She rectifies the write ups and post them in our WA groups. She also assesses the level of the write ups and categorises the good ones as Planet or Sol class depending upon their quality. Here come two of our latest reports and both of them are of Planet Class. Congratulations Siddhartha and Idhant.
Our dear Siddhartha and Idhant have very well summarised the last 3S session. Urging all to give them a read.
SWAN SESSION 19/9/26
*Name- Siddhartha Ghosh*
*Class- IX*
We got to witness a very unique session today along with two wonderful presentations.
We started with our usual news session-
I)Siddhartha(Me)- NASA has discovered a massive, newly formed crater on the moon's surface. It is named as McGetchin and it is termed as the largest newly formed crater in the solar system. It was estimated to be formed between a time period of 11th April to 22nd May, in the year 2024. This is called the once in a century crater because of its huge impact. Scientists have estimated that this crater has been formed by the collision of a meteor or comet likely to be the height of a 3 to 5 storey building.
II) Since Ritoja had the same news as mine, she added some more information to the news. Here they are-
The crater was 22 meters wide and 43 metres deep. It was discovered by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. This is an important discovery which would help scientists detect significant changes on the lunar surface, which otherwise would be difficult to detect.
III)Headsir- China launched the Shijian-31 satellite on 16th June, 2026, which would be the first, from the Shijian series. This series is a mission containing a total of three spacecraft launches. In the number '31' along with the spacecraft name, the three signifies the three missions of the project. The one signifies the number of missions in order. The main task of this satellite would be to receive information or spy on geostationary satellites of other countries. Its orbit has been set by redirecting the Molniya orbit. The Molniya orbit is the orbit which is set at an angle of 63 degrees from the equatorial plane of earth.
It has a perigee of 1993 km and an apogee of 39,896km. The satellite has an orbital time of 12.5 hours. While it orbits, it will pass near the geostationary satellites above the equator, and could possibly gather some encrypted information from them.
Then Aranya had a question, he asked why a drop of water on the surface of a mobile screen or watch acted as a magnifying glass. He was told that, when a drop of water falls on a screen it forms a bulge shape outwards and as water is transparent so it acts exactly like a magnifying glass (convex lens). As a result, it has a magnifying effect.
Then our Tomodeep also asked another interesting question. He asked that when an object is placed behind a glass tumbler filled with water, the object gets horizontally flipped in our vision. This happens because the glass tumbler is in the shape of the sides bulging out and so it acts as a bulged piece of lens (convex lens). So it behaves exactly like the lens, flipping it horizontally.
Then Idhant also asked a question about how the temperature decreases with an increase in altitude. The reason was answered by Headsir. He explained that in the plains, the sun's rays are vertical so the heat is concentrated directly. So the temperature is higher as compared to hills. As we move up the hills, the sun's rays start to fall in a slanted manner. This results in the sun rays falling over a larger area with less concentration, so the temperature decreases with a higher altitude.
Then we finally came to our presentations, the first presentation was given by Adhiraj. His topic was about "video games".
He started by telling us about the types: single player or multiplayer. Games were introduced when a software engineer A. S. Douglas made a simple tic-tac-toe game on a vacuum tube computer as a part of his PhD research project. More people like William Higinbotham and Steve Russel made them a part of their projects.
Then in the 1970s, video games were introduced to the public rather than staying confined to research projects. They were played in a place called an "arcade" as entertainment.
Then a person called Ralph Bear, created the first prototype computer called the brown box specifically made for gaming, and for the first time games could be played at home. After this, came the Nintendo console with its first game as Donkey Kong (Mario Game).
Then came portable gaming, which changed gaming forever, with Nintendo Gameboy as the first of its kind. With this, a game could be carried around anywhere.
Furthermore, in the 2000s came Microsoft's Xbox live which allowed players to play and communicate over voice meets. Their first game was World of Warcraft which had about 10 million subscribers on release.
Then he came to the Genre of games. Some were Platform, Action, Casual, Survival, Shooter and Racing games. He then told us about the way online games worked. He said when a user performed an action in-game, the action reached the game database and a reaction was given accordingly in the gameplay. He then finally concluded with the topic, how gaming can be a profession to earn from and ended.
After the presentation Headsir spoke about the dark side of gaming. He told us how people's minds get badly manipulated and affected. He also spoke about how badly the sharp graphics, high FPS(Frames Per Second), and loud sounds affect can affect the eyesight and hearing of a person.
Then we got another wonderful presentation by Dollo dada. He started with a simple question "Other than ploughing, money, wheel; which thing has helped humans develop?". Everyone answered "fire" in unison and that's correct. Then he told us to imagine a scenario. It went like this, 'We were the early humans of primitive age, and we suddenly saw a flowery like thing, and on going close it we felt hot and on trying to touch it we felt pain, but if we can keep it in front of our cave we could ward off other animals at night and thus save ourselves. As we did not know how to make fire so we tried different methods like rubbing stones, wood and finally in present time we came to the most used source of fire being a lighter'. Then we finally came to know his presentation topic which was a lighter. He started by telling us the different parts of a lighter. He told us about the main three needs for a lighter to work. They were the ignitor(spark plug), the fuel(butane), and oxygen (from air). Then he moved on to its mechanism. The process starts from the fuel chamber with the butane kept highly pressurised inside in liquid form. When the button is pressed, first a lever is pushed on a side so a spring lifts up and a valve opens. Then, pressurised butane converts to gas and comes to a metal cap at top. At the same time a piezoelectric device is also pushed which forms a small spark, which is enough for the gas to get ignited and fire is formed. When the button is released, the valve closes cutting the flow of butane gas and stopping the fire. Then after telling about few more details, he concluded with his presentation.
Then, we finally ended the session by reciting our motto on cue and having a small birthday celebration of our dear Tomodeep post-session.
THANKYOU
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*Idhant Sen, Class V:*
*Report* 3S Session
19th of Sep 2026
*News and facts*
Siddhartha dada-
Source -The Hindu
Scientists from NASA discovered a very big crater on the moon and it is one of the biggest recently discovered craters. The name of the crater is McGetchin and it is believed that the asteroid that created the crater was 6 storeys long.
Ritoja didi-
Source- space.com
She added on the same topic as Siddhartha dada that the McGetchin crater is about 200m wide and 43m deep.
Headsir-
Source- Print Media
China's Shijian 31 has successfully reached Molniyan orbit. The orbit has a Perigee of 1993 km and an Apogee of 39886 km above the Earth's surface. It takes about 12.5 hours to orbit around the Earth. Through the Molniyan orbit, when it crosses the equator, it scans and maps the radio signals of the satellites placed on the Geo stationery orbit.
He then explained Perigee (closest point to Earth) and Apogee (furthest point from Earth). Apo means furthest, Peri means closest and Gee is the Earth. For the Sun it's Perihelion and Apohelion. For Mars it's Apoareion and Periareion and for all other orbiting celestial objects, it is Apoapsis and Periapsis.
*Presentations*
Adhiraj dada
He started explaining the history of gaming. His presentation consisted of 3 main subtopics:-
1. How gaming began
2. Genres
3. Gaming as a profession
He began by saying, gaming started in the 1960s as some PhD scholars began experimenting with putting games into computers. He then moved on to the 1970s where machines were built specifically for gaming. In the 1980s, these machines reached the homes of people with the help of Ralph Bear and his invention-the brown box. In the 1990s, Nintendo entered the field of gaming and launched its Gameboy, a portable gaming device in the 2000s. Then he explained the various types of games such as survival, platformer, racing, shooting, casual, etc and in this era online gaming gained a mass increase in popularity. He showed us a few big games which were roblox, minecraft, fortnite, and stumble guys. Then, he explained how gaming can be taken up as a profession. Either people buy the games developers create, or people see videos of professionals playing the game from which they earn money. With this, Adhiraj Dada ended his presentation.
Then Headsir warned us of the bad effects of gaming and suggested us to focus more on outdoor games and activities.
Dollo dada: He started his presentation by saying Fire is one of the most important discoveries of mankind. He explained that three necessary components required to make fire are:
1) Fuel
2) Ignition temperature (Heat)
3) Oxygen
With this concept he then explained how a lighter works. He handed all the parts of a lighter to us and explained how a spark is getting created through the Piezoelectric device and how butane Gas works as fuel, and in the presence of oxygen in the air, a flame is created.
Then he ended his presentation.
Later we celebrated the birthdays of Tamadip and Rombik dada and had 'khaidai'.
THANK YOU.
