31/54 The Quick-Pour Soda Bottle Race

Today’s experiment was a little bit on the irritating side. I grabbed a one liter soda bottle and filled it almost to the top with water. Then I turned the bottle over and, with a stop watch, I timed how long it took for all of the water to exit the bottle. Then I recorded my data.

I did this three times. Why three times? Because three is a great number! So after doing the three glub-glub tests, it was time for the vortex tests. Filling the bottle, I needed to cover the lid, turn it over, and then do a quick and fast swirl to the bottle. I am trying to make a vortex. It was not working! I tried different techniques but it would glub until the end where it had a beautiful swirling vortex.

It was fantastic when the water stopped glubbing. Because it was glubbing, the tests were fallible. I tried filling the bottle half way and it was a little better but not perfect. I think it was the way I was doing it, not right. I did not know what to do, so I just went with it. After gathering my data, I averaged it and here are the results.

The data says that the vortex method made the water flow out slower. Which is the OPPOSITE of what was supposed to happen. You see in the middle of the vortex there is a hole that allows air to enter into the bottle and lets the water flow out without glubbing; compared to the glubbing test where the bottle has to take that extra effort to bring in air slows the process down. So why is my data wrong? I think the answer is human error. There are a few variables in this experiment that would make it easy for the data to be fallible. One is that the timer could have ended or started late. Or started early. Another is each time I had to fill the bottle with water the water levels could be different even though I tried my best to get the water levels as close as possible. My technique with the swirling could be very fallible indeed. I think that is why my data was so incorrect.

Anyway I love the beauty of the vortex! Why don’t we add some color?

Using Mr. Spangler’s product, I attached a piece that connects two bottles together. It has a hole allowing the water to pass through.

 

Filling the bottle with water, I put lamp oil, that I colored blue, in the bottle with the water. Attaching the other bottle, I did the same swirling motion. The lamp oil gets pulled into the vortex and makes the vortex much easier to see!

A little fun and colorful activity! But here is the grand finale! Check out our bottle now.

With this big baby, I need to bring out the big guns, my brother, because it was just a little heavy.

  With me holding the water up and helping to stabilize, my brother held most of the weight. But first…. we just had to do it.

Now, with some team work, we got the vortex to work large scale!!

   

 

It was fun, we got wet too! But my little brother also dumped a part of the water on my lab coat. I am still trying to dry off.

A great way to end a bit of a epic fail day! For our WOW-rating I give the it a 4. A little less than “Let’s do it again”.

30/54 Windbag Wonders

 For our first experiment in this book we played with Steve Spangler’s Windbags. They are eight foot long tubes of plastic. I pulled out two colors from the package.

I gave Christopher, my brother, the red windbag. We unrolled it and I tied one end in a simple knot. I told my brother to breath air into the bag and that I would time how long it would take him to blow it up fully and that I would count how many breaths he took.

 

After he had fully blown the windbag up, it took him 36 seconds and 15 full breaths to fill the bag.

Now taking the blue bag, I told Christopher I could do it in one breath! Knowing that this is a Steve Spangler experiment I think he knew that I had a trick up my sleeve… and he was right. Taking the open end of the tube, I opened it up with my fingers and placed my mouth about ten inches away. Taking a deep breath, blew into the bag. But it filled only half way, so I took another breath and within four seconds the bag was full!

 

With two blown up eight foot tubes of air it was to hard to resist….. ENGUARDE!

 

(Queue epic music) Good and evil…… But who is which? Think Star Wars!!

Use the force, Cranberry Boy!

As the gallant battle continued, Melissa’s weapon deflated and was once again beaten!

Ok, back to science. Why did the bag fill up faster? Well you may of heard of Bernoulli's Principle which states that fast moving air is surrounded by an area of low pressure or, more specifically, atmospheric pressure. So the air around the low pressure is dragged into the low pressure zone and pushed into the bag by the air of my lungs. Science is so useful!

For our first WOW-rating, I will rate this one at a 5. A solid “Let’s do it again” rating.

That wraps it up for our first experiment in “Fire Bubbles and Exploding Toothpaste”. I am planning on doing another one tomorrow. See you then!