Fun... by Wishimay

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Fun...

POSTED BY: WISHIMAY
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 7, 2014 06:18
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Monday, January 6, 2014 9:57 PM

Since the main board and chat are dead right now (everyone conserving energy to get through polar vortexi vortexs vortexeses????)I'll post here...

So, I have three months to present a mind-blowing science project, any ideas? Think of any cool tricks you've seen that don't really involve baking soda/vinegar or diet coke and mentos...

And yeah, I've seen dozens of videos on you tube, but a lot of those involve chemicals I don't have access to, so it has to be something I CAN get/build and it's gotta be obscure and have a little wow factor.I was thinking something with electricity or lightning, but it doesn't have to be.

Thanks...

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Monday, January 6, 2014 10:25 PM

MAL4PREZ

Quote:
Originally posted by Wishimay:
Since the main board and chat are dead right now (everyone conserving energy to get through polar vortexi vortexs vortexeses????)I'll post here...

So, I have three months to present a mind-blowing science project, any ideas? Think of any cool tricks you've seen that don't really involve baking soda/vinegar or diet coke and mentos...

And yeah, I've seen dozens of videos on you tube, but a lot of those involve chemicals I don't have access to, so it has to be something I CAN get/build and it's gotta be obscure and have a little wow factor.I was thinking something with electricity or lightning, but it doesn't have to be.

Thanks...

YOu can skip the first half of the video, unless you really need background...

I had a student get into this. The grapes must be fresh and well dried after you cut them, and you do need to find the microwave's hot spot (Google this, look for instructions that involve using receipt paper. Seriously.)

I don't know what kind of equipment you have, but we found it enlightening to look into the spectrum of the plasma. We didn't have the goods (ie mass spectrometer) to ID the complex sugars in the grape that feed the plasma, but we noted that different kinds of grapes created plasmas with different spectra. Maybe you could compare the plasma spectrum to the common chem class flame test? Maybe you have multiple microwaves to try different microwave frequencies on the same type of grape?

Whatever. It's super cool and fun. :)

Oh a chem hood is good if you have one. This kicks out ozone and possibly other not good chemicals. I mean, I wouldn't worry about trying this in my own kitchen, but when teaching kids I would never let them breathe this.

BTW, what level is this needed for?

*-------------------------------------------------------------*
MAL4PREZ: Clearly [The Rap]'s doing nothing but trolling now.
STORYMARK: And not even cleverly.
RAPPY: [My trolling] did its job, did it not? Easiest marks in the 'verse.
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Monday, January 6, 2014 11:00 PM

WISHIMAY

That is pretty neat, I had no idea grapes would do that!
My kid is just in fifth grade now, so maybe a "states of matter" demo would be in order for this. And the exhibit takes place in a gym, so I'm not tooo worried about fumes...

That is a great suggestion, thanks!

I'm still open to other ideas, and I like to know good science-y tricks for the kiddoes when they come around anyway... I think the corn starch squeeze bottle lit on fire and the tea rocket ones always get them going the most (anything with fire

) although I had one girl be just fascinated when I stuffed one bottle with rice and inserted a chopstick and picked it up by the chopstick. She just couldn't figure it out. My diet coke and mentos went awry when I failed to realize there was a restrictor nozzle on the package I bought, and half the parking lot got covered in diet coke

They had loads of fun though....

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Tuesday, January 7, 2014 6:18 AM

FREMDFIRMA

I reccommend mining Theo Gray's work for ideas here.
http://www.graysci.com/

FOR SCIENCE!!

-Frem

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