Starting “Fire Bubbles and Exploding Toothpaste”

Soon I will begin the second book. I just wanted to give you a quick look and what we are doing. This book contains 27 awesome experiments to complete out of the 56 experiment journey. You can trust me that it will be an experience! It will take me a little longer to get through this book because I have a job now. If you recall, I started this because I wanted to take my passion for science and use it to do something creative in my spare time. Now I am a junior in high school and I am getting much busier. I won’t post as often but I will do as much as I can! I will never give up on this, I promise you that! Now it is time to put on my lab coat and safety glasses and start the fun!

Recognize and Remember

One week ago from today, I started the marathon to end the first book of my adventure. I was not sure if I was going to make the deadline or if I was going to stay awake for the next experiment. But with a little bit of coffee, I made it through. It was a week of constant fun and learning. In fact the whole book was an adventure of learning new things I never thought about.

Top Five Favorite Experiments:

5: Egg Drop — I do not know why this one was so thrilling for me. I have seen it done on one of Mr. Spangler’s videos. I have even seen him do it right in front of me at a conference! But there was something about me doing it myself and accomplishing it myself that was so enthralling! It is also one of those experiments where you look at it and say, “What a mess.” And to prove yourself  wrong…. too cool.

4: Floating Bubble—This one I knew was possible, but to see it with my own eyes…… priceless.

3: Diet Coke and Mentos Geyser—This experiment I could do all day! The explosion resulting in this scientific duo will never get old.

2: Burning Money—As I have said, I was waiting to do this since we began the book. To burn money but not burn it, who wouldn’t love doing this?

1: Smoke Rings—This one was way back in the beginning of the book, but I remember the thrill of making my very own smoke rings! It was one that was vey unusual and that is partly why it was so much fun!

My Three Favorite Chapters:

3: The Power of Air—This one was the very first chapter in our journey. It held the easy experiments and the hard experiment. But I did learn a whole lot.

2: Gooey Wonders—It was most defiantly the messiest chapter but who cares about getting messy? I LOVED making and discovering different sorts of goo! I have always enjoyed getting messy with gooey things. I was playing with my glacier gak last night and it was too much fun! 

1: Dry Ice—This one was my favorite chapter probably because I had never before had the chance to “play” with dry ice. Through all of those mini experiments, I learned so much more than I would have thought.

The Hardest Experiment:

Flying Potatoes was by far the hardest experiment. If you recall, it took me a couple of weeks to get the result I wanted. But in the end, all was accomplished.

The Experiment I Learned the Most:

Flying Potatoes was by far the experiment where I learned the most. Surprised? You shouldn’t be. You learn more when things go wrong. Why? Well, you want it to work right? So, you try to figure out why it is not working and figure out how to fix it. By doing that problem solving, you learn so much more than if the experiment went right the first time. I am glad it didn’t go right the first time, because then I wouldn’t have the knowledge I have now. So hear me, my friend, when I say that when an experiment goes wrong, the worst  thing you can do is give up.

The Experiment That Made Me Laugh the Most

Screaming Balloon made us all laugh pretty hard (especially my mom). But it wasn’t when I did the experiment right, necessarily. It was when (in the first video) I did not hold onto the balloon tight enough and I went chasing after the balloon all over the kitchen! It took us a few minutes to regain our “non-laughing” selves to retake the video.

The Coolest Looking Experiment

That one is most defiantly the soap soufflé experiment. The most gorgeous looking bar of soap in America!!

   

The Experiment That Wowed Me The Most

This one was a tough one because there were SO many experiments that blew my mind. But the egg drop was the one that made me go “WOW”! I guess it was mostly that the magic trick-like experiment was made possible by a normal person like me.

Now that we have looked back and relived the exploration that we went through, it is time to move on to the next book, “Fire Bubbles and Exploding Toothpaste” (OOooo! I am SOO excited). After ending a full week of experiments galore, I am going through experiment withdrawals!! I am ready to dig into the next book. For this next book, I will add something. At the end of each experiment, I am going to give the experiment a WOW-rating. On a scale from 1-10, I will rate the experiment on how much it WOWed me. 1 being a “Fun to do just once”, 5 being a “Let’s do it again!”, and a 10 being a “Knock your socks off!!”. 

I hope you have enjoyed “Naked Eggs and Flying Potatoes” as much as I have. I also hope you will stay with me for the adventure of “Fire Bubbles and Exploding Toothpaste”.

29/54 Mentos Geyser Experiment

 Here we are, the last experiment for the book. We are going out with a bang for our BIG FINALE!! You have probably heard(or even done) the Diet Coke and Mentos geysers! That is when we get a two-liter diet coke bottle and put mentos in the coke to get a big reaction. To make this grand, I invited all of my friends over to set off as many geysers as we can! We were able to set off nine geysers! With seven mentos each, we pulled out a index card to let the mentos out of the test tube. It was AWESOME!! Check it out.

After the wonderful experiment we partook in yummy soda. As my good friend Sydney demonstrates.

 

And a lovely group picture.

But why does the coke explode when we put in mentos? The explanation is rather long but very interesting. I encourage you to look up the result of our little experiment and discover for yourself!

For a little celebration, we ate ice cream while having whip-cream mustaches.

 

 

I loved having my friends over for helping me complete my first book! They have supported me throughout the journey.

There we are. Done with a marathon and the first book. It is a bitter sweet end. I have had so much fun with this first book and I am excited to move on to the next book. If I did not have another book to move on to, I would probably be crying right now. I am exhausted from this marathon and ready to sleep! Thank you for going along with me on my marathon and also through “Naked Eggs and Flying Potatoes”. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I have!

28/54 Burning Money

This experiment is the halfway point for the whole adventure!! Number 28 out of the 56! In recognition of that, the experiment is one I have been waiting for all week, burning money. Some of you are thinking, “Who would do that?!” Well…. Me! Only I am not really burning it. Let’s just get to the experiment and all will become clear. I mixed up one ounce of water, two ounces of rubbing alcohol, and a little bit of salt.

This is what I am going to soak the money in. Speaking of which, I need some money for my experiment. “Oh, Brother!”

Some would say that this is really unkind. But it makes up a great story. To calm my little brother’s nerves, I created and signed a contract.

This made my brother feel much better. But the fear was still lurking about. It was time to head outside. I set the flammable liquid on an upside-down table and completely submerged the dollar bill into it.

 

Wiping off some excess alcohol, I kept the bill far away from me and lit it on fire!!

  

The bill was just fine after the flames had gone out. But we had to do it a few more times!

It was so much fun! Through this whole book I have been waiting to get to this one. After we were done, Christopher inspected the bill very closely. Other than wet, the bill was fine.

Just for the fun of it we took the contract and burned it in our fire pit.

An evil laugh was in store.

Please note that all the events in this experiment have been done with close adult supervision.

Fun stuff but why didn’t the bill burn up? Well if we did just alcohol (no water) then it would have burned to a crisp. The water evaporates and absorbs most of the heat. That keeps the temperature down to below the ignition temperature. When alcohol burns, it burns with a light blue flame and it is kind of hard to see. The salt was added so that the flame burned that nice yellow we all know.

Later today we will have the grand finale of the amazing book “Naked Eggs and Flying Potatoes”. I cannot wait to show you what we have in store.

27/54 The Screaming Balloon

This one is so easy but so very entertaining! All you need is a balloon and a hex nut! Squeeze the hex nut in the balloon and blow up the balloon.

 

Now holding the balloon, I start swirling the balloon. If you do not hold onto the balloon firmly, this is what happens!!

Oops! Clumsy me! That balloon was camera shy.

Now holding the balloon firmly, I began, once again, to turn the balloon in a swirling motion.

It is making kind of a screaming sound! That is the sound of all of the little corners of the hex nut rapidly hitting the side of the balloon! Cool, right?

The end of day four is here. Tomorrow is our last day! We will finish with a grand finale! In the morning I will be doing an experiment, then the finale. Nine experiments down, two to go.

26/54 The Egg Drop

During our journey though “Naked Eggs and Flying Potatoes”, we have done many things to poor defenseless eggs. But this last experiment with eggs for this book is probably my favorite egg experiment. What is it then? We will start out by taking a glass and filling it with water (HA! You thought I was going to say “vinegar” didn’t you?). Then I placed a pie pan on top and next a toilet paper roll.

 

With a daring spirit, I place a raw egg on top of the toilet paper roll.

Now here comes the amazing part. I positioned my hand about six inches from the pan, ready to knock it off. (GASP!)

Moving swiftly, I hit the pan.

 

I could be really mean and just stop right here. But because this is so cool, I will let you see what happened.

The egg survived! It landed in the water safely!! With excitement pumping though me, I just HAD to do it again! But this time I took a video for all of you!

Yes, a very enthralling experience! As my mom said, “She did one, but can she do three?”

Some of you are thinking “She is brave”. Most of you are thinking “She is nuts”. A few of you are probably thinking “What a mess.” Can it be done? Let’s see.

BRILLIANT!!!

This calls for a dance!

I was so darn happy!

And yes, my friend. I do have a video.

What is happening here? Sir Isaac Newton’s First Law of Motion. It says that objects in motion want to keep moving and objects that are stationary want to stay still- unless an outside force acts on them. The egg wants to stay still on top of the tube because that is what is doing. With the pan moving and then knocking the tube out from under the egg, the egg for just a fraction of a second, stays in the position it was in with the support of the tube. Then gravity took over and the egg landed safely in the water.

I loved this one!

25/54 The Leakproof Bag

  This one boggles my mind! I filled a plastic bag just over half full with water and sealed it. With many sharpened colored pencils I very carefully started to poke the pencils into the bag and though the other side.

 

Not a drop lost! One by one, I poked colored pencils in different places in the bag and in different ways.

 

   

All in all, I stuck in thirteen pencils! I did not loose hardly any water! It was so cool!

The plastic bag is a flexible polymer called low-density-polyethylene (LDPE). Its flexible properties help form a temporary seal around the smooth surface of the pencil!

That is the end of day 3! That is seven experiments down, four more to go! I am exhausted from the constant fun.

24/54 Floating Water

This experiment was really quick but was just as fun! I started off by grabbing one of my plastic cups and filling it to the top with water! Then my mom heroically found index cards that will completely cover the top of the cup.

 

Here is the daring part. Picking it up, I held it over a large bowl and flipped the whole thing upside down. Then I removed my hand!

WOW!! It stayed in place. It dripped a little bit but no splash. I did the experiment again (who wouldn’t?) and it lasted about seventeen seconds. Magic? No, SCIENCE!

How does it do that? It is all about air pressure. When I flip the cup over, the pressure outside of the cup and inside of the cup is the same. But the cup released some water. That resulted in the same amount of air at the bottom (or top) of the cup but it has to occupy more volume since some water escaped. Thus, the pressure decreased just a little inside of the cup. Now the pressure outside of the cup is greater than the pressure inside. That pressure is pushing up on the card, keeping it in place. Ha ha!! That is so cool! I just LOVE doing the experiment but finding out why it does what it did can be just as fun!

Now it is time to eat lunch and then start the last experiment for the day!

23/54 The Baby Diaper Secret

We will finish the “Gooey Wonders” chapter today with an experiment that I have been wanting to do for awhile. In my years of babysitting, I have changed many diapers, but I have never dissected one before. With the generosity of my employer, I had two diapers for my experiment. Over a large piece of paper, I cut open the diaper, pulled the fluff out, and stuck it into a plastic bag.

 

While I was doing this, many little “beads” of a white polymer spilled onto the piece of paper. I took the piece of paper and poured the polymer substance into the bag as well.

Now with all of the contents in the bag, I closed it and began shaking it vigorously. This required hard concentration!

After several minutes of shaking, I went ahead and did the second diaper and this is how much polymer I acquired.

 

Not a lot for two diapers? I thought the same thing. But do not be deceived by its innocent appearance! Do not underestimate its power. This, however, is not the fun part. It has only just begun!

Earlier I had measured four ounces of water. After pouring the polymer into the cup, I added the water and stirred it with my finger. All of the sudden the mixture began to grow and become thick.

All of the little pieces had soaked up the water like thousands of little sponges! Before I played with it too much I wanted to pull off a little stunt. I have seen many videos of Mr. Spangler doing this. I grabbed the cup and turned it over and it did not spill out!

It was just brilliant! After handling the polymer substance, it seemed kind of dry, not wet enough. So I added more water.

I kept adding more and more water and it kept growing and growing! It grew so big that I had to switch to a bowl.

I told you not to underestimate its power.

Before                           &                         After

                  

These little polymer crystals are super absorbent! Mr. Spangler mentions that some can soak up as much as eight-hundred times its weight in water! WOW!

I took this a little further, I reversed the process. I took a small amount of the spongy substance and added salt to it. Mixing it with my finger, the result happened really fast!

The salt eliminates the polymers water-absorbing ability. The polymer released the water and that white dust at the bottom is not left over salt. It is the polymer! As a general rule of thumb, never add salt to a diaper!

Today, I am doing a total of three experiments. So I have a lot of playing to do! Next we will move into the chapter-

“Don’t Try This At Home…. Try This At a Friends Home!”

Another thing, if you are doing this experiment, try not to make a mess. These little polymers pieces get EVERYWHERE! I had a big mess to clean up and they aren’t easily cleaned up!