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Mysterious Glowing Light

When the ball is stationary, you will observe a white light, but when the ball is in motion (in a darkened room), you will see alternating red, blue, and green lights.   Inside the ball are three colored LEDs that rapidly cycle between red, blue and green light. When the ball is stationary, the eye focuses all three colors on the same part of the retina. As a result, our brain interprets this as white light. This is due to the persistence of vision that occurs inside the brain.   The brain remembers each of the different colored lights for…

Poly Density Experiment

The Poly Density Kit comes with bottle, white and blue beads and salt. You just need to add rubbing alcohol (70% or 91%). Both work but require different steps to setup.   In the bottle we have a mixture of rubbing alcohol, pure salt, water and white & blue beads.   When the bottle is shaken, the two liquid layers momentarily mix, forming a homogeneous mixture.   Water and rubbing alcohol are soluble in all proportions. Both the water molecules and the alcohol molecules easily hydrogen bonds to each other. The sodium chloride salt particles, however, bind with the water…

Memory Wire Experiment

Memory Wire. This wire is amazingly cool – a wire that, no matter how you shape it, when heated will instantly spring back to straight. It’s called Nitinol Wire, which is alloy of 50% Nickel and 50% Titanium also called memory wire.   This metal changes phase around 50oC. Bend it, then drop it into hot water and watch it return to its original shape! Can be set into different shapes by heating with a candle flame.  

Walk Through Paper Trick

Ask someone if they can cut out a regular size piece of paper so they can put their body through it? The paper has to be in one piece and can not use anything to hold it together. Then tell them you can do this after they can not do it.   Go to the link below for the print out of the Walk Through Paper. Cut out on the lines. Make sure only to cut the 6 pieces on the folded part in the middle, Do NOT cut the ends. Then unfold and you will be able to walk…

Spun Eggs Experiment

This is a great hands on experiment for kids, specially with easter right around the corner. See if your friends can tell the difference between a raw and hard boiled egg without breaking them?   The hard-boiled egg spins smoothly and quickly. It will even stand up straight, this is because the egg inside is solid. The raw egg wobbles as it spins because the egg inside is liquid. As the raw egg is spinning, the liquid inside sloshes around, and affects the egg’s spin. Why does this affect the egg’s spin? It’s because of Newton’s First Law of Motion….

Stand up egg Experiment

Try standing an egg upright on a table, balancing the small end on its end – it’s not easy is it? And No you can’t crush it on one end of the egg. That is cheating.   The secret material we used is salt. If you sprinkle a little table salt where you are going to place the egg…. Hey presto! The egg stands up on its own.   The Salt crystals are very angular and cube like, so they don’t role out of the way. This makes them a good base for the egg to balance on! After the…

Orange Peel Pop a Balloon Experiment

The juice from an orange peel causes a balloon to pop. When I first saw this I thought to myself, “ what is the Science behind this experiment?” What I found out is, the compound in orange peels called limonene, which is responsible for this pop. It’s just Awesome to do this experiment! Every time I did this experiment I knew the balloon was going to pop and I jumped. FUN haha   Limonene is a hydrocarbon. Latex rubber is also a hydrocarbon. Hydrocarbons will dissolve together if in contact with each other. So when the citrus oil touches the…

Quick Crystals with Epsom Salt Experiment

Epsom salt is another name for the chemical magnesium sulfate.   How do the Epsom salts crystals grow? Hot water holds more Epsom salts crystals than cold water does. That’s because heated water molecules move farther apart, making room for more of the Epsom salts crystals to dissolve. When no more of the crystals can be dissolved, you have a saturated solution. As this solution cools, the water molecules move closer together again.   Cooling the solution rapidly (in Freezer 10 minutes) encourages fast crystal growth, since there is less room for the dissolved salt in the cooler, denser solution….

Cloud in a Jar Experiment

Clouds are formed when water droplets in the air cool and then collect on dust particles. In this experiment, the smoke provided the dust particles from the match.   You will see vapors form inside the jar this is because the warm water and the match heated the air. The warm air rose to the top of the jar and touched the cool air from the ice cubes. When the warm wet air meets with the cold air it forms a cloud of water droplets. This is what you see with our clouds outside. Clouds are filled with water droplets…

Silver egg Experiment

When we burn something, a chemical reaction is caused between the burning material and oxygen in the air. What we end up with is carbon as a solid product. When we burn the eggshell from every side and make it totally pitch black, a thin coat of carbon covers the whole surface of the eggshell. That’s why the egg becomes black because carbon is black.   In the carbon coating, some air is stuck. And won’t get wet. When the egg is submerged into the water, light rays hit it through the water. When the light rays reflect back from…

Screaming Balloon experiment

Why does the hex nut make a sound? The answer is simple science. The hex nuts circle the inside of the balloon due to centripetal force. Centripetal force is the force that causes the hex nuts to move in a circular pattern.   The hex nut has 6 flat sides. The flat edges of the hex nut allow it to vibrate or bounce along the inside wall of the balloon. The screaming sound is created by the sides of the hex nut bouncing or vibrating along the sides of the balloon.  

Floating M with M&M candy Experiment

The floating m doesn’t happen immediately, but the color dissolving off of the M&M happened almost immediately. The materials used to color the M&M start to dissolve quickly and you begin to see the colored dyes from the M&Ms dissolve and make rainbow colored water!   The chocolate on the other hand did not dissolve quickly, but we wanted to see the floating m!   It took about 10 minutes for the first M and about another 5 or 10 minutes for all the M’s to float. Using warmer water will make the M float faster.   And there it…

Bed of nails with Balloon Experiment

Nails are sharp because they have a point with very little surface area. One nail point has a lot less surface area than, say, five or ten nail points like a balloon might encounter on a bed of nails. To pop a balloon, a nail has to exert a lot of pressure on the balloon. Pressure = force / area, so the smaller the area, the more pressure is exerted by the same amount of force. On a bed of nails, the force is distributed over those 68 nail points (remember, more surface area), so the pressure is less and…

Baby Diaper Secret Experiment

The secret, water-absorbing chemical in a diaper is a superabsorbent polymer called sodium polyacrylate. A polymer is simply a long chain of repeating molecules. If the prefix “poly” means many, then a polymer is a long chain of molecules made up of many smaller units, called monomers, which are joined together. Some polymers are made up of millions of monomers.   Superabsorbent polymers expand tremendously when they come in contact with water because water is drawn into and held by the molecules of the polymer. They act like giant sponges. Some can soak up as much as 800 times their…

Kinetic Sand experiment

Kinetic Sand, a sand play toy made from 98% sand, and 2% Polydimethylsiloxane, a “silicon-based organic polymer…particularly known for its unusual rheological (or flow) properties.” It makes the sand act weird.   It hold shapes great and kids love building objects with it, but when touched it seems to become sand in motion. Kids love this stuff.  

Wave Machine Demonstration Experiment

To make a awesome wave machine, you only need 3 things: gummy bears (candy), duct tape, and skewers. It took me about 15 minutes to make.   When lifting the gummy bear up and releasing it causes a disturbance that sends energy from one end to the other end and back. Depending high you raise the gummy bear is how big the disturbance will be, but not matter how high you raise the gummy bear it will always go the same speed back and forward. If you want to change the speed take off half of the gummy bears and…

Reflection of Light – Disappearing Coin Trick and the Science behind it.

When there is no water in the cup, the light from the penny experiences very little refraction and we can see the light from the penny.   When there is water in the cup, the light from the penny experiences refraction (bending) and reflection (total internal reflection, TIR) such the light it is not able to reach the observer’s eyes. A small amount of refraction occurs as the light leaves the penny and travels through the bottom of the cup, then refraction occurs again as it enters the water. When refraction occurs at the side of the cup there is…

CLEAN A PENNY WITH VINEGAR

Why did the pennies look dirty before I put them in the vinegar? Copper atoms can combine with oxygen atoms to make a molecule called copper oxide. The pennies looked dull and dirty because they were covered with copper oxide.   Why did the vinegar and salt clean the pennies? Copper oxide dissolves in table salt-and vinegar because of its weak acid.   Why did the unrinsed pennies turn blue-green? When the vinegar and salt dissolve the copper-oxide layer, which makes it easier for the copper atoms to join oxygen and chlorine from the salt to make a blue-green compound…

Egg drop with toilet paper experiment

Fill water glass about 3/4 way full, place pie tin on top of water glass, place paper tube on top of pie tin and directly over the whole of the water glass. then hit the pie tin from the side very quickly.   Why does the egg fall right into the glass? This was answered by Sir Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion, which states that an object at rest remains at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same velocity unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.   Because the egg is not moving at…

The Shaken-Soda Cans experiment

Two identical soda cans released at the same time on an incline will roll down at the same rate. However, if one of the cans is shaken, it will lose the race. Experimental evidence is presented that points to the presence of bubbles as the cause of the greater energy transfer to the fluid in the case of the shaken can.   The moment of inertia of the two cans is different.   When you shake one can, the gas inside the liquid tries to escape. It creates a foam that cannot escape and covers most of the unused volume…

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