50/54 Kid-Friendly Exploding Toothpaste

Here we enter into the really big (and dangerous) experiments of the chapter “The Super Secret Teachers Only Section”. As a reminder, do NOT do these experiments. During this chapter, I will not name all of the materials for safety reasons. My mother is behind the camera supervising me the whole time.

This one I did at my 13th birthday party with my good friends (because its kid-friendly). Take a look at the picture for a moment.

This is a 1-liter bottle and the solution at the bottom has red food coloring, a couple squirts of dish soap, and a very low concentration of hydrogen peroxide. I made this solution using gloves because hydrogen peroxide is very caustic. I have a little bit lower concentration then the experiment called for. So low, it’s safe to touch, but I STILL used gloves for safety.

The next step is to make my catalyst. I put my catalyst in some warm water and mixed it well.

 

  After it was thoroughly dissolved, I poured the catalyst in the solution in my bottle. Let’s see what amazing reaction took place!

 It took a second to happen but once it did……

 

Look at that bubbly volcano of AWESOMENESS!!!

Really cool looking right??

But what is happening? Well, the hydrogen peroxide is made of hydrogen and oxygen, H2O2. Hydrogen Peroxide naturally breaks down into hydrogen and oxygen, but this breakdown of the chemical is VERY slow. Do you know what a catalyst is? It is a chemical that speeds up the reaction of another chemical. So when we added the catalyst, it sped up the breakdown of the hydrogen and oxygen molecules significantly. Thus, the gas that was being rapidly produced was captured by the soap, making tons of tiny bubbles that ended up as a colorful soapy reaction. All that is in those bubbles is oxygen, so (for this low of a concentration of H2O2) it is safe to touch.

Do you see that I am touching the bottle in that last picture? It is because it’s warm! Not only does the reaction produce a bunch of gas, it also produces a lot of energy. This is an exothermic reaction!

This was fun wasn’t it? The WOW-rating was an 7 1/2! I would do this over and over!!

This was the “Kid-friendly” version of exploding toothpaste. Next time we will explore this experiment again but the concentration of the hydrogen peroxide will be 9 TIMES the concentration of this one!

Stay tuned!!

A Word About the Next Chapter

The next chapter should be an adventure. BUT it IS entitled “Super Secret Teachers Only Section” for a reason. These next experiments are dangerous and not for kids. I have SPECIAL permission from my parents to do these experiments and we are going to take every safety precaution along the way.

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT attempt to do these next experiments (or any other experiments for that matter) without safe instructions and permission.

As a side note, I will not be doing the experiments in this chapter in order. I will be doing them in the order in which I have the materials available.

These are going to be the last experiments of our adventure (sad, I know!) so lets enjoy it safely!

Now, let’s do some more science!

49/54 Floating Bowling Balls

You are probably looking at this title and thinking, “What?”

It’s ok, that’s what I thought too! But you and I both should know by now that these books have made us do a lot of weird things! This should be no different…. or will it?

I filled up my container full of water. Nothing special about it, just good, fresh water. I have two bowling balls, the blue one is 16 pounds and the red one is 7 pounds. The blue one belongs to my dad so we had it on hand. The red one, however, I got from a bowling center. They were throwing it away because it has this big crack!

I just asked them if they had a bowling balls under 12 pounds (you’ll find out why that is important in a little while) that they were throwing away and the kind lady set this beauty in front of me. Because I will be putting this in the water, I covered the crack with a piece of duck tape so that it would not affect my results.

To start the experiment, I carefully set the 16 pound bowling ball into the bucket of water…… Guesses?

You got it…….

Straight to the bottom.

No surprise, right?

I, then, followed the instructions and set the 7 pound ball into the water.

Wait, did you see that right?

 

Yes, You did! That ball of 7 pounds is floating in water!

How can this be? Well, if you did not know this already, bowling balls have a standard size but they have different weights. How? One word, density. The 7 pound ball is less dense than the water, thus it floats. The 16 pound ball is more dense than the water so it sinks. 12 pounds is kind of the tipping point. Anything greater will sink and anything less will float. 12 pounds, according to the book, will barely float in the water because it is barely less dense than the water. There are some calculations that you could do to measure the exact density of the ball. Pretty cool, huh?

The WOW-rating for this one is a 5. I would love to do this again with various weights of bowling balls but unfortunately I do not have that luxury!

I would like to thank the Isleta Fun Center for proving the red bowling ball for me!

That ends our last experiment in the chapter, “Must-See Science” and on to the big chapter….. “The Super-Secret Teachers-Only Section”!! 

48/54 Skewer Through A Balloon

Another balloon experiment!

This one is fun! Have you ever noticed that dark spot on the top of the balloon when you blow it up? That’s going to be very important here in a minute. I take a bamboo skewer and I cover it with dawn soap, I am using it as a lubricant.

Being very gentle with a twisting motion, I pushed the pointy end of the skewer into that dark spot of the balloon.

 

It was so funny seeing my mom taking pictures and trying to cover her ears at the same time!

Just as I thought the balloon would pop, the skewer punctured through and the balloon was still intact!

Pretty cool, right? But we are not done yet! Now it is time to push the skewer straight across through the other side. Because the side were you tie off the balloon is dark as well.

Here we go…

Then………

Voila!! That balloon has been impaled and is alive!!!

It wont be for long though.

Small amounts of air was escaping, but it won’t pop.

The reason the dark spot is so important is because those two areas is where there is the least stress on the balloon. But if we tried to do this through the middle of the balloon, it will surely pop! Do you want to see the stress areas on the balloon more closely? Try this! Take a marker and put dots all over the balloon then blow it up with air! See what happens.

As I said, you cant put the skewer through the middle, but lets try this! I put a piece of tape on another balloon, but I put it right on the side.

Then, I took a thumb tack and…..

HA HA! I was so happy when it worked. I was honestly really frightened by that second part with the tack, I had never done it before and I really wasn’t sure if it was going to work. But how did it work? I am not completely sure myself but here is my guess. When you pop a balloon by puncturing it, it shreds from the point you hit. Now the tape holds the hole together and the balloon does not shred via popping. Do you have any hypotheses?

The WOW-rating for this one is a 6. I had a lot of fun!

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!