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Atal Tinkering Labs ATL

Making Butter experiment

Heavy cream is what is called an “emulsion”. An emulsion exists when tiny droplets of one type of liquid are floating around in another type of liquid that does not like to mix with the first. In the case of heavy cream, tiny globules of fat are suspended in mostly water. By shaking the heavy cream in the cup (5 minutes), you are forcing the fat globules to slam into one another. If they hit each other with enough force, they will simply stick together, the fat collection becoming bigger and bigger with each extra globule. After enough shaking, the…

Scribble Bots Experiment

Scribble Bots are loads of fun to make and provide lots of creative thinking opportunities. This simple version uses a small motor and pens fixed around a cup. The motor makes the arm Popsicle stick spin, which in turn makes the scribble bot move.   Give kids the challenge, such as getting the Scribble-Bot to draw a dotted line or left to explore freely going through an iterative process of designing, testing and amending their ideas. Try different propellers such as a cork, clay or straws and mix with different objects like smaller cups and cans or even a small…

Making Ice cream in a Bag experiment

1/2 cup Heavy Whipping Cream 1/2 teaspoon vanilla (Optional) 1 tablespoon sugar 4 cups crushed ice 1/2 cup Ice Cream salt (Rock Salt) 2 quart size Zip-loc bags 1 gallon size Zip-loc freezer bag   When salt and ice mix, the freezing point of the ice is lowered and the freezing point reached depends on the amount of salt used. The more salt is added, the lower the temperature can get before the saltwater solution freezes. Remember the more salt add the colder your hands will get.  

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…

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