When you sit down thinking about what you should base your science fair project on, you can be inspired by the strangest sources. The brush you use on your coat, the honey bee outside the window or even the pet dog sleeping at your feet. In fact it was a wet Labrador who inspired a project spin cycle for a washing machine.

At the Georgia Institute of Atlanta the researcher Andrew Dickerson derived a formula to improve the performances of washing machines and spin dryers based on the frequency at which the Labrador shook itself dry. The frequency is 4.3 Hertz in case you were wondering.

The course of the study revealed that a cold and wet animal had to dry off fast to avoid hypothermia. Thus they used the shaking mechanism to pull the water out of their fur and down using gravity to the floor. The research also found that the smaller the animal the faster it needed to shake. Also the more loose the skin of the animal was the more effective the shaking pattern was.

All this may seem irrelevant and useless information but it was used by mechanical engineers and designers to come up with a better and improved design for washing machines. So pick out a strange source for your science fair project and believe me the research may just have unique applications you have not yet through about.