47/54 It Pays to Smile

This experiment literally took five minutes and was entertaining. All I needed was a crisp dollar bill. Have you noticed Washington’s facial expression on the dollar bill? What if we can change that expression?

I started by folding the bill straight across one of his eyes.

I made the same fold across his other eye. Then, I fold the two folds together so that it looks like this…

Ok, so I did a couple of fancy folds, what does that got to do with changing the expression of President Washington? Take a look at this!

When I tilted the bill up slightly, Washington’s smiled just as big as I was when I saw this.

When I tilted the bill downwards, well let’s just say he wasn’t too happy about that.

 

This is a simple optical illusion. The folds contort and make Washington seem that he is changing his expression.

The WOW-rating for this one is a 3, but it was fun to move the bill up and down repeatedly though. Fun five minute activity, ain’t it? I wonder if any other presidents can smile?

46/54 Fireproof Balloon

Let’s begin chapter “Must-See Science”.

I actually did this experiment awhile ago. I needed to test it for an example at my church. So I went ahead and did the experiment and took pictures and all!

The materials are just a couple of balloons, water, a candle, a lighter, and (my favorite) safety glasses! I started out by blowing up a balloon (filling it with air, not the dynamite kind!). Then I lighted the candle and slowly lowered that balloon over it, it got closer and closer!

 

The balloon got probably four or five inches above that candle then………

POP! The mere heat rising up from the candle popped that balloon to pieces. The air escaping the balloon actually blew out the candle!

The second balloon I filled with water from my tap. With light shining through it, you could see the water.

 

I repeated the process…. this time very carefully because if that thing popped, I would get a bath!

Here is the balloon when it was about the height of the balloon with no water.

So far so good! I lowered it even further…..

 

WOW! It was nearly touching the flame itself…. LET US GO FURTHER!

 

It was touching the flame and it would not pop!!! SO COOL!!!

Look at what the flame created at the bottom of the balloon.

It created a black soot that could rub off. This is carbon from the flame itself. It just collected there but the balloon itself is undamaged.

What is happening here? The water is actually absorbing the heat and protecting the balloon from being harmed. The water is heating up in the process. Cool right?

The WOW-rating is a 7. I find this fascinating for some reason.

Not only are we starting a new chapter, but if you notice we only have 10 more experiments left! This adventure is almost over. I can hardly believe it!

45/54 The Unbelievable Pendulum Catch

This one has fun motion science in it! First, I needed 15 metal washers of the same size. I looked everywhere but I could not find anything to suit my needs. So I decided to try it with metal nuts (because I read the experiment, I understood that I could do this without effecting the outcome.) However, I STILL didn’t have enough of the same sized nuts. This is where my years of math experience came in. I knew that I needed a 1 to 14 ratio of the weight of the nuts. I weighted one nut to be 4 grams and 14 times 4 is 56. With this knowledge, I gathered the different sized nuts and made it exactly 56 grams. Thus, even though I did not have the same size of nuts, I just made sure the weight was the same which was the important thing. YAY! Math saved me from running to Home Depot!

By tying one nut (4g) on one end of a 27inch string and tying the others (56g) on the other end. It came out like this, it had a 1:14 weight ratio.

Now, what am I am going to do with this? Well, as you might have guessed, I am going to make a pendulum. What is so exciting about that? Actually, I find pendulums fun to play with, but this I haven’t done before.

I pointed my index finger and pull the heavy end all the way up to where it was touching my finger. Then, I let go of the single nut and let the other end fall. The heavy end falls very quickly! It took my a few tries to get it right. But look…

  

The heavy end never touched the ground!!! The light end swung around my finger and caught the heavy end. This shows that the small can be mighty!! It was fun to do.

By swinging (like a pendulum) the small nut wrapped around my finger (some tries a couple of times and other tries many times!) and stopped the heavy end by taking away the string so that it could move towards the ground.

In the book, this experiment ends the chapter "Science in Motion". The next experiment, we will begin the chapter "Must-See Science"!

The WOW-rating I give a 5. I am tempted to go and try other objects around the house! See if a spoon can catch a mug or if a pencil can catch a book. It just has to be a 1 to 14 weight ratio or else it may not work…… or will it?

44/54 Color Mixing Wheel

To start off with, I drew three circles on a piece of white card board, drew a line in the middle, colored it in, and cut it out.

 

By carefully pushing some holes in the wheel and threading a string through them, I made this contraption.

The goal here is to spin this wheel by twisting the string then pulling it tight. It was really tricky but I was able to get it! Check out what happens when the wheel gets going.

  

  

Once it spins you not only see the colors I colored in, you see new ones! What other colors do you see?

I see purple, orange, and a little bit of green in the smallest circle.

Since I had so much trouble getting the wheel to spin right, I wanted to explore other ways to get this wheel spinning. So, I pulled out my Lazy Susan.

As I tried to get it going, I quickly learned that I wouldn’t get it going nearly as fast as it needed to. But the camera caught an interesting frame. Something we could not capture with our naked eye.

Fun, right? The wheel was spinning so fast that our brains cannot keep up, thus we see the colors mixing!

The WOW-rating is a 3. I wasn’t completely thrilled with his, probably because of my age. But I can totally see a small child absolutely loving this!

43/54 Dripping Candle Seesaw

This one I had fun with! Look at the structure I put together for this.

Just a couple of straws with candles at the ends. The horizontal straw is balanced with a simple paperclip and it is pushed into the vertical straw.

  

What happens when we light one candle on fire? Well, its starts to drip wax and the candle on one side gets lighter. Thus,

It moved fairly quickly! Then I lighted the second candle and it began to drip as well. Then…

 

It started to drip and tip back and forth till it completely swung around!!!

It did this until there was not more wax! It was so cool to see it swing about like that! The candle did go out a few times, but nothing that a lighter can’t handle!

The WOW-rating is a 7! That was a great example to learn balance. If you have kids, look up this experiment and show your kids to help them understand the concept of balance. Be safe and have fun!