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”.
