42/54 Cork in a Wine Bottle Puzzle

This experiment was one I have never seen or tried before. The materials are simple, an empty wine bottle, a cork, and a handkerchief or cloth napkin. I had to get the cork inside the bottle. But the cork expanded since we pulled it from the bottle and would not fit AT ALL in the bottle, so I shaved it down to the size it would have been if it just came out of the bottle… it was still difficult, but I got it in!

  

To get started, I gently tapped the cork on the ground until it couldn’t get in the bottle any further.

 

Then, taking a mallet and a dowel, I hammered the cork the rest of the way!

Now the challenge is to get the cork out of the bottle without damaging the cork or the bottle!

This is as close as I got!

However, we can get the cork out with a cloth. By making a cup shape with the cloth, we can tip the cork into the cup shape.

I gently started to pull on the cloth, taking the cork with it. But the cloth had a lot of folds in at and got stuck, so I tried again! This time it was nearly perfect!

I began to pull and the cork was moving along with the cloth….. it took some work..

It released with a big POP and the cork was free!

It even flew across the room!

Pretty cool huh? I would give this a WOW-rating of 5, a solid “let’s do this again!”. By using the cloth to get the cork out, it reduced the friction between the cork and the glass, allowing it to slip out much easier!

Fun science. Now that you know the trick, see if your friends can figure it out. If they can’t, WOW them with your new knowledge. Be safe and have fun!

41/54 Balancing Nails

This experiment starts our new chapter, "Science in motion". Let's get started!

This experiment was very familiar to me. Because I work at a hands-on science museum, they have this puzzle available for the kids to figure out and it is one of my favorites in the museum!

The only difference with this situation is the size. “What on earth is she talking about?’ you might say. Let me clear things up for you. Take a look at the materials.

 

In one hand, I hammered a nail into a block of wood and in my left hand, I hold 11 large nails. The challenge is to balance the 11 nails on top of the head of the one in the block. Before we continue…. why don’t you try to solve it? Be careful hammering in the nail! If you are a kid, ask a parent to help you! I hope you can figure it out.

Did you figure it out? Do you have a good guess of what it should look like? If you had some trouble.. that’s ok! At leased you tried! Want to know the solution?

You first lay a nail on the table or surface and use the other nails to make a criss-cross pattern.

Do this until you have one nail left and lay that nail across the others.

Then, by grabbing the ends, lift up the nails allowing the nails to drop slightly.

 

Then lift it onto the one nail in the block and adjust it until you feel like it is balanced and …..let go!

 

TA DA!!! It may take you a few tries but I hope you got it!

I decided to take it further and see how many nails I could remove without the nails falling over. It took me two tries but I was able to remove all but four of the nails!

I had never done that before! I was so happy!

I have done this puzzle a lot, but this one was different because I used MUCH smaller nails than the one at the museum. They use landscape nails or spikes! HUGE! And of course I never tried removing the nails, so that was fun!

The WOW-rating I will give a 2. Maybe so low because I have done this many times before, but this is a great example of center of gravity.

40/54 Skateboard Rocket Car

 A beautiful summer day called me to do a fantastic experiment. Do you remember way back when we did the grand finale to the first book? I had my friends over and we explored the reaction between Diet Coke and Mentos? Well, we are going to visit this again, but with a launch! Check out the set up..

As you can see, I have a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke strapped to a skate-board with nothing but duck tape. Can you see where I am going with this? The cardboard has no other function other than to elevate the bottle above the lip of the end of the skateboard.

With my friend Caleb to help me, he lifted the end of the skateboard and I unscrewed the top.

 This way I can drop the Mentos in easier. With a 3-2-1, I dropped the Mentos into the soda. Caleb the dropped the skateboard and let it roll!

 

The beloved chemical reaction started to push the skateboard along the patio of my backyard.

The is how far it went…

Not very far at all. Maybe just a few inches. Why? Well, one reason, I believe, is because it was a new skateboard so the wheels were not broken in and so it may have been harder to get the board moving. Number two is that I think the reaction was not powerful enough…. time to bring in the geyser. You might remember the geyser from the last Diet Coke and Mentos experiment. This is an invention of Steve Spangler's and it attaches to the bottle and it narrows the hole where the soda can escape,t
hus, causing the soda to spurt out faster.

I attached the geyser and repeated the process….. lets look at the results!

        

WOW! Now that was a cool reaction. Check out how far it went….

As you can see it when significantly farther than the rocket without the geyser.

This is simple proof that the second reaction was stronger than the first and was a great example of  Newton’s Three Laws of Motion. How do they apply you might ask? I will leave that up to you to discover. And I have another challenge for you, how can you make it go even farther? Would changing the tube make a difference?

The WOW-rating I would give a 7, I would totally do it again to see if I can make it go farther! I just didn't have the resources to do that this time around. 

I would like to thank my Grandparents for giving me the skateboard for my experiment!

That wraps up the chapter “Kitchen Chaos” and I have had a lot of fun!