HOW-TO

These experiments require no previous knowledge and can mostly be done safely with household items. If you are doing this at home, remember to always have adult supervision and have fun! More experiments are on their way!

Balloon-Powered Car

Materials:

  • A balloon or latex glove

  • 4 plastic drink covers

  • Roll of tape

  • A pair of scissors

  • Straws (one straw needs to be wider than the rest for this experiment)

  • Small box

Procedure:

  1. Take the bigger straw and cut it into 2 pieces that are the same length as the width of the box.

  2. Tape each piece of the straw to each end of the box.

  3. Take the pair of scissors and cut a hole in the middle of each of the drink covers.

  4. After cutting a hole in the middle of the covers, take two of the covers and put each of them on the left or right ends of two of the thinner straws.

  5. Put the two thinner straws with the drink covers on one end of each of them into each larger straw on the box, and attach the two other drink covers (with holes in them) to the ends of each straw that don’t already have a cover on them. Make sure to use tape to secure the drink covers onto the straws.

  6. Take the latex glove or balloon and tape the end of it tightly onto one end of the straw.

  7. Tape the latex glove or balloon and straw to the top of the box with the open end of the straw facing the back of the box.

Explanation:

Potential energy is the energy that is stored in an object due to its position relative to some zero position. An object possesses gravitational potential energy if it is positioned at a height over or under the zero height. The potential energy of the car is stored in the expanding elastic material of the balloon or latex glove. When the balloon fills with air, it adds more potential or stored energy. Kinetic energy is the energy of mass in motion. The kinetic energy of an object is the energy it has because of its motion. As the air flows out of the balloon, the energy changes to kinetic energy or the energy of motion. Engineers often deal with kinetic and potential energy in their projects.

Seeing Sound

https://youtu.be/XaBQlzy5eY4

Materials:

  • Large bowl

  • Plastic/saran wrap

  • 1 teaspoon of uncooked rice

  • Metal pan

  • Metal Spoon

  • Tape


Procedure:

  1. Wrap the saran wrap tightly over the top of the bowl. Optional: tape it down to make sure the plastic is flat and tight over the top.

  2. Pour the rice over the plastic wrap on top of the bowl.

  3. Hit the metal spoon against the metal tray near the bowl with rice on top to make noise.

  4. Adjust the strength of your hits and the closeness of the pan to the bowl as needed to see the rice move. 


Explanation:

Sound is made up of a series of longitudinal waves that use air as a way to travel. In this experiment, when you hit the metal pan with the spoon the vibration created creates a sound wave in the air. The first row of air molecules hit by the vibration start to vibrate, hitting the next row of air molecules and so on, like a water ripple. Eventually, these series of vibrations get to the large bowl and cause the saran wrap on top of the bowl to vibrate. This vibration causes the rice to move, which lets you “see” sound. Sound engineers need to understand how sound works in order to create things like music.

Simple Electromagnet 

https://youtu.be/XbLIOY8H72A

Materials 

  • “D” battery 

  • Thinly coated copper wire 

  • Tape

  • Scissors

  • Two 3 in long Nails  

  • Paper lips

  • Heat resistant gloves


Procedure

  1. Take one of the nails and wrap it multiple times with copper wire, make sure to leave about 4 inches of wire on each end 

  2. Take the D battery and tape one of the ends of topper strands to one end of the battery 

  3. See how a regular nail has a weak magnetic field using the paper clips

  4. Friction fit the remaining strand of copper wire on the wrapped nail to the other side of the battery and use the magnetic forces to pick up a bundle of nails. WARNING: the wire gets very hot very quickly, so using heat resistant gloves when handling is useful 


Explanation 

Electricity is the flow of electrons between points and can exist in circuits for power and current (a circuit is created once the two ends of the copper wire are connected to the magnet). A magnetic field exists around certain metals like iron and nickel. It is simply an attractive force that pulls other bodies towards it. When an electrical field is applied to a magnetic field, it is able to increases the power of the magnetic field and in this case allows a once weak fielded nail to hold much more.