Program 23: A G3 Favorite…Static Electricity!

Static electricity is always a popular topic with our G3 scientists. Why? In part, I think it’s fun to learn about something that we all experience pretty much on a daily basis. When you walk across the floor in your socks and then get a shock when you touch the TV – that’s static electricity. When you see lightning flash during a summer storm – that’s static electricity. [FUN FACT:  Did you know that lightning not only goes from clouds down to the ground, but it can also go from cloud to cloud and from ground to cloud?]  And the list of static electricity examples could go on and on.

Atom showing 2 protons (+), 2 electrons (-), and 2 neutrons (green)

To get us ready for the day’s experiments, we first briefly discussed what static electricity is and how it can be created. All matter is made up of tiny things called atoms. And in each atom, there are protons (+), neutrons, and electrons (-). Normally, an atom has an equal number of protons and electrons, so the atom itself is neutral with no charge. But if the conditions change and there are more protons in the atom, then that atom becomes positively charged. Likewise, if the conditions change and there are more electrons in the atom, that atom becomes negatively charged.

Take as an example the static electricity reaction you sometimes see after you comb your hair. When you drag a comb through your hair, the comb is attracting the electrons from the atoms in your hair. The comb becomes negatively charged as electrons stick to it, and your hair becomes positively charged as the electrons are removed from it. Your hair strands would be drawn toward the comb if you held it above your head – opposite charges attract each other.  On the other hand, your strands of hair try to push away from each other because of their like charge – like charges repel each other.

We watched a few youtube videos to get us in the right scientific frame of mind as well, some of which are included below.  Bill Nye the Science Guy talks about how a Van de Graaf generator works; a news report shows us why you should never talk on your cell phone or keep your car running while you pump gas at a gas station; and a family shares a cute home video about how static electricity can even have an impact on the loveable family pet

OUR PROJECTS FOR THE DAY:  Leyden Jars and Floating Tinsel Orbs!

Leyden jars come in various shapes and sizes. They are basically a way to store and later release a static charge. For our experiment, we created simple leyden jars from the following materials:

• Empy 35mm film canister with lid (or similar sized object)
• a paperclip (with one part stretched out straight)
• tin foil
• glue (we used glue sticks)
• water
• Balloons (for creating the static charge we stored in the leyden jar)

I pre-cut strips of tin foil for all to use (approximately 2″ x 5″). Step one was smoothing out the foil and putting some glue on the less shiny side. We then wrapped the foil on the outer side of the empty film canister, making sure the foil was as smooth as possible. [The foil should overlap slightly.]  There should be excess foil in the length that gets folded under the bottom of the film canister as well. Next, we pushed the straight edge of the paperclip through the center of the film canister lid. We then pulled the lid off and filled the container about 2/3 to 3/4 full of water. [You can dissolve some salt in the water if you'd like to try and enhance how well the static electricity is carried through the device.] With the lid back on and in place (the straight edge of the paper clip should be in the water), we just needed to charge our leyden jars.

This is the tricky part. We rubbed balloons on our clothes and hair to create a static charge, and then we touched the balloons to the PAPERCLIP ONLY to transfer that charge to the leyden jar. It’s very important that you only touch the paperclip; if you touch the plastic part of the case’s lid, you will neutralize (or eliminate) the charge. Likewise, you have to be very careful to ONLY TOUCH THE TINFOIL WRAPPING for the very same reason. Once we touched the paperclips with our balloons 3 or 4 times, we could then test the jar by hopefully giving ourselves a shock!

To test the jar, you first put the thumb of one hand on the tin foil. With that same hand, you SLOWLY approach the paperclip with another finger from that same hand. If all is successful, you will feel a small shock (the same level of shock you might get by touching the TV after walking across a rug in a pair of socks). With the lights out, you might even be able to see the spark that occurs between your finger and the paperclip. All of my tests before the program were a success. Sadly, we had less success during the programs themselves…in part (at least for the Track B program) because it was a rainy, humid day. When there is extra moisture in the air, the water molecules in the air attract a portion of any charge you create and thus make it more difficult to build up a decent charge on the balloons, in the jars, etc. We did have a few G3 scientists successfully feel the shock though!

For fun, I also showed our scientists a really fun trick that just requires a balloon and some tinsel (the kind of tinsel strands some people put on their Christmas trees!). First, you take a few strands of tinsel and tie them together in a knot at each end. You probably don’t want your “orb” to have strands longer than 4-5 inches. Next, you charge your balloon by rubbing it against your hair, clothes, or any other item that you think might help. The trick itself takes a little practice, and often a few attempts. But when successful, you drop the tinsel onto the charged balloon and after it quick touches the balloon’s surface, it then bounces off and floats above the balloon in mid-air! Why does this happen? Initially, the balloon and the tinsel have opposite charges and are attracted to each other. But once they touch, they carry the same charge…and as you know, like charges repel. Thus, the floating tinsel orb!

We had more successes with this trick than the leyden jars, I think. In fact, check out one of our successful moments below…and I’ll be talking with you again after our next program!

Program 22: Catapult Comeback!

Who doesn’t love catapults, right?  Our G3 scientists haven’t experimented with catapults since the very first program, so I thought it was a great time to revisit them and take a fresh look at just how many different kinds of catapults there are (and just how cool they really can be!).

We talked about several different kinds of catapults - sling shots, trebuchets, and even aircraft catapults – complete with video demonstrations from YouTube of all in action. [FUN FACT:  Did you know that there are actually sling shots with built-in digital cameras? Perfect for getting photos of your startled "victims" ]  We checked out “the world’s largest slingshot,” we watched as a sneaky grasshopper catapulted lots of bugs off of a leaf, and we also saw some elderly gents from England who designed and built a gigantic trebuchet that could fling a full-sized car through a field! Even jets use catapults (powered by reservoirs of steam) to help in taking off from aircraft carriers.

Our target

For the initial version of our catapults, we each used instructions downloaded from the web site for PBS’s program called FETCH (“Target Practice“). Once models were ready to test, our G3 scientists tested them out by launching a variety of objects – pom poms of various sizes, red beans, lima beans, and even pasta! – at a Lego Ninjago target (last seen during our program about paper airplanes).

Ready to launch!

Ready…aim…FIRE!

After all of the initial models had been tested, the G3 crew was encouraged to modify their catapults however they wanted…though most of our crew really just wanted to practice with their basic catapult model.  I provided a little extra incentive for our target practice. I attached two large drinking cups to the target and told the G3 crew that anyone who could sink a shot in one of the cups would get a special treat:  candy! And sure enough, we had a few scientists who were able to hone their skills for some amazing, candy-worthy shots. [Of course, all scientists got to leave with a piece of candy at the end of the program for terrific effort and scientific skill ]

Catapults definitely create a lot of mess for Nicole and her assistant Kaitlin to clean up…but they sure are a lot fun!

Program 21: BALANCE

Our final program of the session was on BALANCE. What keeps an object in balance? What is balance? Well, there are several definitions, but the most common definition (as noted on Dictionary.com) is:

• A state of equilibrium or equipoise; equal distribution of weight, amount, etc.

To start us off, we watched a series of very interesting videos to get us in the right frames of mind for the days challenges. First, we saw a pair of videos about the fascinating field of rock or stone balancing. The G3 crew was mesmerized in particular by the gent from the United Kingdom…how do they do that?!?

We then watched a pair of videos from ABC News about the amazing tightrope walking skills of Nik Wallenda. The first video in the pair actually talks about the science of balance within the human body, explaining just what the challenges for a tightrope walker would be. The second video is a look at the last steps of Nik’s world record breaking walk across the main falls of Niagara in 2012.

Challenge #1

With the videos behind us, it was time for our first challenge of the day…a little activity I picked up at a conference I attended. I had the image of a girl with her hands outstretched printed on card stock. Each G3 scientist received one cutout girl and 2 paperclips. The challenge:  How can you get the girl to balance on her head on the tip of your finger? It wasn’t long before our clever scientists figured out the trick involved with this activity. By putting a paperclip on either side of the girl (one on each arm), the weight is evenly distributed and the girl is able to balance on her head!  Of course, our scientists did more than just balance her on their fingertips. We had balancing girls on heads, noses, and even tongues

Westminster Balancing Bird

For challenge #2, I first showed the groups my very own “Westminster Balancing Bird.” To be honest, I’m not sure where it got its name. But it quite miraculously can balance on the very tip of its beak from just about any angle! The trick? Extra weight in the wing tips helps to stabilize the bird and allow it to balance with its body leaning into empty air. So what activity could be more perfect than making our own Westminster Balancing Birds?

Challenge #2

I provided bird templates cut out from cardstock. The original instructions came from bobscrafts.com, as well as the actual template for creating the bird shape. The G3 scientists were instructed to fold a series of tabs underneath the wing tips and glue them each in place – this provided the extra weight at the wing tips that allows for the masterful balancing. Though the original instructions suggested also gluing a sewing needle underneath the bird as a beak that would stick out from the front, I instead chose to glue a folded staple in place as the beak for each bird template (same result, but less chance of stabbing our poor fingers!) I also provided markers and crayons so our scientists could customize their special birds. Needless to say, there were a lot of balance challenges going on around the room. Again, popular balancing body parts included fingers, noses, and particularly tongues for this one

Challenge #3

Our final challenge of the day was a tough one. The original idea came from Steve Spangler’s web site. Each scientist – or team of scientists – was presented with a block of wood that had one single nail (size 10) sticking straight out of it. They were also given 11 extra nails (same size as the one sticking out of the block of wood). Their challenge was to balance all 11 nails on the head of the one nail in the block of wood! Many scientists tried to balance one nail vertically straight on top of another – and none could find the solution without a series of careful hints from yours truly. But once they figured out the trick, there was a lot of excitement about successfully completing the challenge. And of course, our G3 scientists are nothing if not creative. So we had some very clever multiple object balance displays erected on the spot.  If you’d like to try this experiment from home, check out the instructional video from Steve Spangler’s web site below.

I hope to see you next session!

Program 20: Espionage

Our G3 scientists know exactly how to have fun on snowy winter days…talking about spies and spy technology! Our recent program focused on spies and all of the cool gadgets they use. As always, we began with a presentation that introduced a lot of really interesting history about spies and the tools they have used through time.

Caesar Cipher

Spies and espionage were being talked about as early as 400-500 BC, when a Chinese diplomat and military strategist named Sun Tzu wrote a still very famous book called The Art of War. In his book, he said that “…an army without secret agents is exactly like a man without eyes or ears,” and he described different types of spies and various techniques they could use to gather information about enemies. Many famous leaders throughout history have made great use of espionage and spy tools. Take for example Julius Caesar. He invented an alphabet cipher that has actually come to be known as the “Caesar Cipher” and was used for all of his communications with his army generals and key contacts. It is one of the simplest and most used shift ciphers. Basically, the cipher alphabet is the plain alphabet rotated left or right by some number of positions. For example, by shifting all letters 3 places to the left, the letter A would be replaced by the letter D, the letter B would be replaced by the letter E, etc.  Alexander the Great also used spies, and Ghengis Kahn made a point of recruiting local people from the villages he conquered to act as his spies.

Spies aren’t just men, though. There have been many famous women spies throughout history. During the Civil War, both Belle Boyd and Mary Elizbeth Bowser were active and successful spies. Boyd spied for the Confederates by mingling with Union soliders that gathered at her father’s hotel. And Bowser pretended to be an illiterate servant so she could listen in on the Confederate President’s conversations and bring information back to the Union troops. One of the most famous female spies was Mata Hari. She was a double agent that spied for both the French AND the Germans during World War I…until she was betrayed and then executed (by hanging) for her crimes.

In the United States, we have 2 agencies with spies:  The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). What is the difference between the two agencies? The FBI is primarily a law enforcement agency, collecting intelligence related to domestic security and performing crime investigation. The CIA is an international intelligence agency which is not responsible for domestic security. In simplest terms, the FBI investigates crimes and the CIA gathers intelligence. Here are some fun facts about the CIA in particular:

• The CIA felt it was too much of a security risk to allow a person to come to their offices and mow their lawns…so they had their scientists invent robot lawnmowers to do the job!
• Every 5 years, all CIA employees MUST take a lie detector, or polygraph, test.
• The CIA is always monitoring every single television station and program.
• The CIA has 7 supercomputers, and they are all named after the 7 dwarfs from Snow White (Doc, Dopey, Bashful, Grumpy, Sneezy, Sleepy and Happy)
• The CIA has its own police force…and its own zip code!
• Some medicines may cause people to talk while asleep during an operation. If a CIA officer has surgery, another CIA officer must be there to make sure nothing secret is said.

Image created by Microdot camera

Historic Microdot Camera

One of the coolest things we explored during the program were the various tools that spies have used (and still use) for their work. Some of these tools included:

• Listening devices in watches and shoe heels
• Microdot cameras
• Cipher disks from the 1790′s and up
• The Enigma Machine used by the Germans during World War II
• Objects with secret compartments (like shoe heels, empty shaving cream cans, and even egg shells!)
• Weapons like a lipstick gun, a ring gun, a flashlight gun, and the famous “Bulgarian Umbrella”

Flashlight Gun

The “Bulgarian Umbrella”

The Microdot Camera was particularly cool, and is still used today. It can convert a full page of text into a tiny dot that then requires the recipient to read it through a microscope! The flashlight gun is no doubt a particularly effective weapon – I imagine that a spy/agent could blind an enemy with the light and then shoot.  Our G3 scientists also learned about the true story behind the Bulgarian Umbrella. The KGB (the Russian secret service) decided to kill a famous Bulgarian writer and had one of their agents sneak up behind the Bulgarian and poke him in the leg with an umbrella designed to inject a poison capsule. Needless to say, the Bulgarian got poked and a few days later died from the poison.

Arrest that squirrel!

Even better than tools was our discussion about all of the ANIMAL spies that have been used throughout history (and even some crazy stories about animals suspected of being spies!):

• Homing Pigeons (used as early as Ancient Egypt up through World War II!)
• Dolphins wearing special cameras patrol on the west coast
• The doomed (and very expensive) CIA project:  “Acoustic Kitty”
• Bomb-sniffing bees
• Adrenalin-sniffing Gerbils
• Spy squirrels??

OUR PROJECTS FOR THE DAY

I had several projects set aside for our G3 scientists. First order of business:  invisible ink. There are a lot of different recipes for invisible ink. Some of the most popular versions involve using a lemon juice solution to write your message, and then using a heat source to reveal the message after the paper is dry. It was difficult for me to find a good heat source for us to use during our program, so I used another popular recipe for invisible ink that requires just a couple of common household ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon water
• plain grape juice (the purple kind)

The message revealed!

Grape juice is the key to revealing the secret message!

You mix the baking soda and water together in a cup. Once mixed, you can use either a paintbrush or a cotton swab (we used cotton swabs) to dip into the baking soda/water mixture and write your message on a blank piece of paper. Once the paper is dry, lay it flat on a surface (preferably with a tablecloth or something underneath to protect your surface). Dip a clean cotton swab into some regular grape juice, and rub it back and forth across the paper. The grape juice reacts with the baking soda to reveal your secret message!

Next, I showed our scientists a neat “spy” trick I learned in The Master Spy Handbook by Rain Newcomb:  The coded rubber band!

1. First, you stretch a rubber band around a book. [The more you can stretch it out, the better.]
2. Next, you write a message on the rubber band with a pen…something like “science is cool!” [HINT: The smaller and skinner you can make your letters, the better!]
3. Finally, you pull the rubber band off of the book and let it shrink back to it’s normal size.

Voila! Your original message should be very difficult to read once the rubber band shrinks. You can shoot the rubber band to the person your message is intended for. All they have to do to read the message is stretch the rubber band back out. As an example, check out the before and after pictures of a rubber band message from one of our very own G3 scientists below!

Secret Message Rubber Band – unstretched

Secret Message Rubber Band – message revealed!

Honing our powers of observation…

I knew we also needed to test our scientists’ powers of observation. I distributed several puzzles and codes for them to decipher/work on, including a “Find the Hidden Picture” puzzle from a recent Highlights Magazine, a ‘compare the 2 images and spot the differences’ puzzle, and a genuine picture cypher from World War II for them to find a hidden meaning in. Both groups did a great job finding the solutions…without using my answer keys!

Our cipher wheel – tricky stuff!

Finally, we attempted to use a cipher wheel (our template came from Kids Make Stuff). This task proved the most challenging. Many of our scientists took it home with my instruction sheet to play with it some more in their free time. Some of the scientists started to get the hang of it before our time ran out. Basically, to encrypt text (or make it secret) you first turn the inner/smaller disk to set a code letter (that letter will appear through the small cut out window in the smaller disk). Then, for each letter of your message, you find your letter in the outer ring and replace it with the letter shown on the inner ring. To decode text, you turn the inner disk to set the correct code letter (as given to you by your partner), and then you find each letter of their message on the smaller disk and replace it with the true letter shown on the outer disk.

All in all, our G3 scientists proved that they had the skills necessary to put them on the path to being very successful spies! For more information – or to explore the sources where I got a lot of my information – check out these books from the Cheshire Public Library collection:

The Master Spy Handbook by Rain Newcomb

Spies by Clive Gifford

Secrets, Lies, Gizmos, and Spies: A History of Spies and Espionage by Janet Wyman Coleman

Spies, Double Agents, and Traitors by Susan K. Mitchell

Spies and Lies – Famous and Infamous Spies by Susan K. Mitchell

The CIA: Central Intelligence Agency by Tristan Boyer Binns

Spy (a DK Eyewitness Book) by Richard Platt

Program 19: Bouncy Balls!

What better way to kick off our 2013 G3 programs than a little fun with polymers in the shape of BOUNCY BALLS! That’s right. With a few easy to find ingredients, our scientists were able to create their very own bouncy balls. Now, our bouncy balls didn’t have quite the “spunk” of the classic bouncy balls you find in any number of stores – those balls are created under 50,000 pounds of compressed energy! We certainly have some muscles, but not enough to compress the materials that much. Nonetheless, our creations were pretty cool.

Perhaps the first and most famous bouncy ball was the Super Ball created by Wham-O (the company also responsible for frisbees, the Slip ‘n Slide, etc.).  Here are some interesting facts and trivia about that classic toy, as noted on cracked.com:

• The bouncy ball was invented in 1965 by Norman H. Stingley and sold as the Super Ball by Wham-O
• They come in all shapes, sizes, and colors (even square!)
• The average bouncy ball can retain up to 70% of its kinetic energy when thrown at a hard surface (Remember – potential energy is “stored” energy, and kinetic energy is “active” or “released” energy. Retaining that much kinetic energy is why bouncy balls seem to bounce on and on and on…)
• An average adult can slam a Super Ball down hard enough for the bounce to clear a three-story building!
• The spin of a Super Ball reverses on each bounce
• As a promotional stunt, Wham-O made a Super Ball the size of a bowling ball and dropped it off the roof of a 23-story hotel, just to see what would happen. On the second bounce, it destroyed a parked car!

For our experiment, we used a few simple ingredients based on the recipe shared on KidsActivitiesBlog.com:

1. 1 tablespoon of  glue (best to use multipurpose vs. washable)
2. 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of corn starch
3. 2 tablespoons water (best if water is warm)
4. 1/2 teaspoon of Borax (a powdered detergent that can be found in the laundry aisle of most supermarkets)
5. food coloring (optional)

The key to this experiment is combining the ingredients in the right order, and in the correct ratios. First you want to pour your water and borax into a cup to combine and dissolve the Borax powder. Next, in a separate cup, you should mix the corn starch and glue together (the consistency may start out a little dry, but keep stirring until you have a smooth, liquid-like consistency – like melted frosting). Now, pour the Borax/water mixture into the cup with the glue/corn starch mixture. IMPORTANT! BE SURE TO LET THE COMBINED INGREDIENTS SIT STILL WITHOUT MIXING FOR 20 SECONDS! This gives the ingredients a chance to begin reacting with each other; in other words, the polymer chains get busy linking together. After 20 seconds, begin stirring. Just as our scientists discovered, you’ll see that the mixture quickly solidifies and becomes difficult to stir (NOTE: Not all of the liquid will mix in – there will be some left over). Now pull that solid blob out of your cup, and begin to squeeze it, and roll it, and mush it into the best ball shape you can…and give it a test bounce!

Part of the fun with this experiment is playing with different amounts of each ingredient, the size and shape of your ball, etc. to see how you can get the best bouncer. Some of our G3 scientists found that a smaller-sized ball had a better bounce. Others thought it worked better on a carpet then the table top (Can you guess why?). Still others found that if they bounced the balls off of the seats of some of our program room chairs, the balls really soared in the air! With the carpet, and especially with our program chairs, there is more natural “give” or “cushion” in the material you are bouncing the ball on, and thus the ball is able to combine its own momentum with that of the other “bouncy” material to really gain some decent height. Check out the video below of some of our G3 scientists testing the bounce of their creations…

In the final moments of the program, the G3 crew tried their hand at breaking a bouncy ball record I discovered on recordsetter.com:  The most standing one-handed catches of a bouncy ball in one minute. The record holder on this site had a count of 62. I am happy to say that several of our group beat that record! We had some counts in the upper 60′s and 70′s! Well done, crew! You definitely earned your bragging rights.

That’s all for now…see you at the next program!

Registration for G3 opens on January 15th, 2013!

Hi, crew!

Just a reminder that the first registration period for G3 in 2013 opens this month on January 15th.  For this first session, the dates are as follows:

• TRACK A:  February 7, 28 and March 14
• TRACK B:  February 14 and March 7, 21

See you soon!

G3 Program 18: SOUND!

For our final G3 program of 2012, I thought it was time to get a little noisy and tackle the topic of SOUND. We even had some special guests visit TRACK A on December 6th to take part in some of our fun:  State Representative Mary G. Fritz (Democrat) and Steve Senator Joe Markley (Republican).

As luck would have it, several of our G3 scientists had just learned about ‘sound’ at school, so they had a head start on our topic of the day. And they were all very well-versed on the subject. I started our program by briefly describing the nature of sound and how sound waves work:

• When objects vibrate, the vibrations are projected into the air and create sound waves.
• The sound waves are composed of tiny particles called atoms and the molecules that make up air.
• Even though you cannot see sound waves with the naked eye, you can often feel sound vibrations…(as seen in the demonstration of our very own “sound cannon” below)…

Ludwig van Beethoven

And most of the scientists successfully answered all of my tricky true and false questions. From the series of questions, we learned a lot of cool facts about sound:

• Outer space is the only truly silent place in our world…because there is no air to help distribute the sound waves.
• Sound vibrations can be carried through more than just air – they can also move through water, woods, metals, and plastics. As an example, Ludwig van Beethoven (the famous composer who was deaf) would often hold a long wooden stick in his teeth, resting the other end on a piano wire. When he played the piano, the vibrations from the piano wire would travel through the stick, through his teeth, through his skull bone, and then directly to his inner ear where he could make sense of the sounds.
• When you put a sea shell up to your ear, you are not actually hearing the ocean. The shell is
  

  Lithograph of Krakatoa Eruption in 1883

  picking up vibrations from all of the sounds occurring around you, and those sounds are making the air inside the shell vibrate and carry sound to your ear.

• If you ever hear someone’s stomach growling very loudly, you can say to them, “Your borborygmi is quite loud!” Borborygmi is the fancy scientific term used to describe the process that creates a growling stomach.

And I even found some cool examples of record-breaking sounds to share with our group:

• The loudest natural sound in recorded history is still the volcanic eruption on the island of Krakatoa that occurred on August 27, 1883. The sound could be heard (and felt) 3,000 miles away!
• The pistol shrimp, only 2 inches long, can eject a powerful jet of water traveling at over 60 mph from it’s one over-sized claw. The snapping sound itself reaches 218 decibels (your eardrum ruptures at 150 decibels). And at the moment the jet of water explodes from the claw, portions of the stream can reach temperatures as hot as the sun!

• The loudest animal in the world, relative to size, is the water boatman.
• The loudest mammal is the blue whale; the loudest land mammal is the howler monkey; the loudest amphibian is the croqui frog; the loudest bird is the oilbird. [Source: http://www.nationalgeographic.com]

But we never do just discussions in our G3 programs…we’re scientists after all! So I had a full series of small experiments for us to do, to help us explore sound in a variety of ways.

Experiment #1:   Humming Hangers

There are many sites that describe how to perform this experiment. This is a very simple experiment, but one with a very cool pay-off. You simply tie a piece of string (about 1-2 feet long) to each end of a metal clothes hanger. You swing the hanger against a table or other solid object. What sound do you hear? With the strings wrapped once around each of your index fingers, put your fingers in your ears and lean forward to swing the hanger against the solid object again. What sound do you hear now?  RESULT: The first sound should be a light dinging noise; the second sound should be almost like a loud gong. ANSWER: With the second attempt, you are giving sound a more direct, quicker path to your inner ear…for a much louder, and more accurate, representation of the sound created.

Experiment #2:  Visualizing Vibrations

Busy at work…

This experiment gave us a handy way to see sound vibrations just using our eyes. All you need is a recycled paper towel tube [some versions use a tin can with both ends removed], a balloon, and a small square mirror. You cut the balloon in half (you really only need enough of the top of the balloon to stretch across the opening of the paper towel tube). Once the balloon is stretched across one end of the tube, you can hold it in place with a rubber band. You then tape a small square of mirror to the center of the balloon, making sure the mirror doesn’t touch the tube itself. You then ask a partner to point a flashlight directly at the mirror. The light reflects off the mirror onto the wall in front of you. When you speak into the tube or make a noise, the vibrations caused by your voice will cause the light waves to vibrate as well. Now you can actually SEE sound vibrations!

*Experiment #3:  Super Easy Noise Makers

I believe this project, hands down, was our scientists’ favorite. With a few simple steps, you can convert a standard plastic drinking straw into a crazy-loud noise maker! We had bendy straws on hand, so first we cut off the bendy end of our straws. We then flattened one end of the straw, cutting off the two corners at the tip. Essentially, you are creating the equivalent of a reed instrument, like a clarinet or an oboe. We then turned a recycled piece of paper into a giant funnel and taped it the opposite (non-cut) end of the straw. The final step – blow! It was the final step that was the most challenging. Some scientists got the knack of it right away – others need the help of their fellow scientists to figure out the best method to make the noise. TIP 1: Make sure the entire cut end of the straw is inside your mouth when you blow. TIP 2: Unlike the way you blow with a recorder, with this straw you need to purse your lips together a bit and focus your blowing.

Experiment #4:  Buzzing Noise Maker

This noise maker doesn’t create as loud a noise as the straw, but it has a lot of flare since you get to swing it around in the air by its string. Full directions can be found on the Steve Spangler science web site by clicking the experiment title above. This was probably the trickiest project for our scientists. You need to be careful with how you put the pieces together. And the size of the rubber band is directly related to the quality of the sound you produce…since the noise is created by the vibrations of the rubber band. We had large rubber bands that were too tight to produce much vibration. Likewise we had smaller rubber bands that didn’t vibrate enough to create much sound. However, some of our scientists came up with the clever idea of putting two of our smaller rubber bands side-by-side on the craft stick, and that definitely led to a better sound.

2012 has been a really fun year for me, and hopefully for all of my G3 scientists! I’ll have some really great projects and experiments ready for us in 2013. But for now…

H A P P Y   H O L I D A Y S !!!

G3 Program 17: Marble Runs!

Our G3 scientists had a lot of fun with this program. “Marble Runs” tested the best of their creativity and ingenuity…but what exactly is a marble run and how can you create one? Well, marble runs come in all shapes and sizes. Some run only along walls, and others swirl around entire rooms. Trying to figure out how to get one started? One really great resource “The Tinkering Studio” blog hosted on the Exploratorium web site. They have a great article dedicated to “marble machines.”

Toothpick run of San Francisco Bay Area

To get us in the right frame of mind, we watched a video about Scott Weaver – he spent the last 35 years creating a model of the San Francisco Bay Area from 100,000+ toothpicks! His run is free-standing and actually uses ping ping balls for its course. We also saw a Japanese cell phone commercial that utilizes a long run through a forest, where the wood steps are actually tuned to different musical notes! (As the ball moves down the track, it plays – I think -  “Ode to Joy”).

The possibilities are endless!

Our G3 marble runs required a lot of creative thinking from the G3 crew. I supplied several tables filled with every kind if material or recycled item that a person could want – and then I let the scientists have their pick of materials to create their runs on peg boards. There were no rules or restrictions – whatever they wanted to use, they could. Some worked in teams, some chose to work alone. Some created fairly traditional marble runs that zig-zagged from side to side on the peg board descent, while other scientists threw in a few extra “tricks” here and there. Check out the really cool results below from our G3 Marble Run playlist on youtube!

G3 Program 16: got milk?

Milk. A beverage that most of us drink every single day, but probably not one that we give much thought to. That’s one of the reasons why huge advertisement campaigns – like the “got milk” posters and commercials – aim to reach children and adults of all ages with information about an often overlooked yet important source of vitamins and minerals in our daily diets.

We learned some interesting things about milk in our program:

1. The habit of drinking milk actually became popular over 10,000 years ago when animals were first domesticated in Afghanastan and Iran. Domestic cows – where we get most of our milk – didn’t even arrive in North American until the 1600′s!
2. Cows produce 90% of the world’s milk needs, and an average cow can produce the equivalent of about 90 glasses of milk a day (or 200,000 glasses during its lifetime).
3. But Cows aren’t the only animals that produce the milk and dairy products that humans consume. You can add to that list goats, sheep, apes, yaks, water buffalos, reindeer, and horses!
4. Why do our dentists say that milk is good for our teeth? Milk and dairy products actually reduce the amount of acidity in our mouths, curb plaque formation, and even reduce the risk of cavities.

As scientists, though, we want to know what exactly milk is…so we can figure out some fun ways to experiment with it. Think of milk as a solution of mostly water that also contains vitamins, minerals, proteins, and fat “droplets.” The proteins and fats actually float around freely in the solution. The gotmilk website actually has some very fun online games that show you just how difficult it is to create a substitute beverage for milk.

Our mission for the ‘got milk’ experiments was a simple one:  What happens when you add food color drops to milk, and then introduce a drop of regular dish washing soap?

It’s important to use liquid food coloring, and not the gel food coloring that is popular in food stores now. The dish soap can be any kind of liquid dish soap – we used the Dawn brand of soap for our experiments. And just to make sure we were thorough as scientists, we conducted our test with a variety of milk types:  whole milk, 2% milk, 1% milk, and fat free milk.

Step 1: Adding the food color drops

We poured just enough milk into a paper plate to completely cover the bottom of the plate. Each scientist determined which colors to add to the milk solution. Only 1 or 2 drops of food coloring per color is necessary, but some of our scientists wanted to add more in specific patterns throughout their plates of milk. Once the drops of food coloring were in place, we dipped a standard q-tip into the Dawn soap, and then slowly lowered it into the center of the plate of milk. What were the results?

The results were both instantaneous and VERY COOL. With just a single drop of dish soap, the colors instantly begin to swirl around the milk in crazy patterns. But why does this happen? Well, remember from our description of the milk solution that the fat droplets are actually floating around in the main solution of the milk. The dish soap molecules are designed to instantly want to attach themselves to fat molecules. [That's why dish soap does such a good job of cleaning up greasy pots and pans.] As the soap molecules race around the solution trying to attach to the floating fat droplets, the food coloring molecules are frantically pushed around the plate. Hence, the crazy swirling of colors that the G3 scientists witnessed!

The big question is:  What happened when we used milk with different fat levels in the same experiment?

Well, we all agreed that the best results were seen with the whole milk, which was also the milk with the highest fat content. But there actually wasn’t a huge different between the whole milk and the other kinds of milk. Whole milk has a fat content of about 3-4% (so not a huge difference between whole milk and either 2% or 1% milk). The biggest difference noted by our G3 scientists was the rate at which the colors swirled. The reaction was faster-moving with the whole milk and got increasingly slower as we used the milks with lower fat content. We even continued to see a reaction in the supposedly no-fat milk which led our scientists to the conclusion that no-fat milk actually must have at least a trace amount of fat present in its solution.

What would happen if you tested this with other liquids/beverages? This is a simple experiment that can be done at home. Just be careful with the food coloring since it will stain just about any material. You can also read more about this experiment by reading the “Color Changing Milk” experiment on Steve Spangler’s web site. And stay tuned for what we’ll be doing in our next program! I’m thinking it will involve creativity, possibly some teamwork, and maybe even a stop watch

 

Happy Halloween!

Meep Meep!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, my G3 scientists!

Enjoy this fun little video I found on youtube courtesy of The Muppets Studio. It stars (surprise surprise) one of my all-time favorite Muppets: Beaker That’s my 2012 costume…what are you going to be this year? See you soon!

Muppet Labs is pleased to unveil its Pump-kinetic sculptor, The Carve-O-Matic 3000!
(c) 2009 The Muppets Studio, LLC