snow day

Being from Montana and an avid skier, as a child around this time of year I would start yearning for snow. I would begin calling to check the weather at least once every hour and do whatever I could to help ensure there was snow in the mountains. This inevitably lead to me walking around our house in my ski boots, goggles, gloves, snow pants, and even clicking into my ski bindings in the living room.

We now live in North Carolina and thus far it has been my experience that snow is not a substance often associated with the Triangle. As a result I have found other ways to imitate the fluffy, crystalized, beauty of snow in simple, fun, science experiments you can easily do at home with a wide age range of kids. Here's how we recently did it with preschool through fifth grade students.

As I bought different types of diapers for my girls, I often wondered why some diapers are more expensive than others; especially swim and overnight diapers. Working in the field I do, I recently found the reason behind it is the type of polymer (long chain of molecules) used in the diapers. Our first experiment will be removing the polymers from diapers to make instant snow!

Gather a disposable diaper (clean), scissors, ziplock bag, spoon, and water. Cut into the diaper and remove all the small little white salt looking particles. Put them into a plastic bag and slowly add spoonfuls of water to the plastic bag. You can watch the hydrophilic (water loving) molecules absorb the water right before your eyes!

 


To extend this experiment, I like to follow the same procedure with different types of diapers to see the difference in the absorption rate. These types of polymers are often sold as Instant Snow if you don't want to dissect a diaper. You can purchase them in most Science Museum Gift shops or at Steve Spangler Science.

Seeing the brilliant sparkle of new snow in the sun will forever remain in my memories. Snow sparkles because it is a crystalline structure. For the next two experiments we will be making crystals!

For the first experiment gather:

• Epsom Salt
• black construction paper
• a bowl
• water

Cut the construction paper into a circle and place on the bottom of the bowl. Mix 1 tablespoon of Salt with 1/4 cup of warm water and stir until salt is dissolved. Pour solution into the pie tin and let dry! To take this experiment further, try different types of salt (table), different colors of construction paper, and my favorite; food coloring!

Finally, my FAVORITE crystal growing experiment! For this to work, you need the secret ingredient, Mrs. Stewarts Laundry Bluing. The only places I have found this in the Triangle are at Kroger and Ace Hardware. The other items you need are:

• salt
• porous material (sponge, charcoal)
• ammonia (I have found the smell can really affect kids so this is a good one to help them with)
• two cups or bowls
• a plate to go under cup because crystals will grow out of cup!
• Food coloring (optional but always recommended!)

 

Place the porous material in one cup and in the other cup mix 1 spoonful of laundry bluing, 1 spoonful of ammonia, and 1 spoonful of salt. Stir the ingredients for about a minute and pour onto pours material. To finish off, drop a few drops of food coloring on top, place under a plate and let sit out over night!

I hope you have the opportunity to try some of these experiments or others I have suggested on my blog. If you do and find some unusual results, please get in touch with me via my email.

Happy Tinkering!

the garage creative (Kyle Hunter)

flying high with the garage creative!

Today was the first day we had three classes with 20 students ranging in age from preschool to fourth grade. It was all smiles as we made high flying contraptions! Here is what and how we did it so you can do to!

We have all made paper airplanes at one point in our life but how about paper helicopters? I have done this so many times with so many different ages of kids with the same result; it's a good time. You only need paper, scissors, and a pen. I like to have markers, paperclips, and single hole punches on hand to mix it up.

Simply draw a rectangle on a piece of paper with dotted lines as seen in the first figure. Fold the rotors down and opposite while folding and making the handle. It is important to fold the rotors back up a little bit before you drop the helicopter, otherwise it will not rotate as smoothly. I like to encourage kids to color, add weight, fold/ cut the rotors differently, punch holes in the rotors, anything to change the flight a little. And of course, the higher you can get for the drop, the better!

  


When we finished experimenting with paper helicopters, we moved to Magnus gliders. Gather 6 rubber bands, two styrofoam cups, and tape (I like duct tape the best). Tape the cups together as in the picture below and make a long chain with the rubber bands.

Find some stairs and release!

Wrap rubber band chain around cups

Once you have built your Magnus Glider, wrap the chain of rubber bands in the middle of the two cups until there is a small amount of rubber band left. Find a nice high location and release your cups! They should float down slowly rotating. When winding the rubber bands around the cups, be sure not to do it too tightly, otherwise you could hurt your cups. It does take some practice to launch the cups but once you do it successfully, you will not want to stop! To change things up a little with this, I like to add holes in the edge of the cups, add paperclips to the edges of the cups to see how that effects the flight, and of course, decorating your cups!

To finish our day we made hover crafts! These are a little more difficult but definitely worth it. You need an old CD, balloon, hot glue and hot glue gun, and finally a pop top to Gatorade or dish soap (these can be a little tricky to find, I really like Gatorade tops because you can twist them as opposed to pulling them up and separating the seal from the cap to the CD). 

Hot glue the top onto the middle of the CD so air can escape out of the bottom of the CD. Put your balloon on the top the drink top, blow up your balloon through the hole in your CD. Close the drink top, set on the ground and lift the top so air will escape from the bottom. Your hover craft will move around on the ground in a way that is very reminiscent to the puck in air hockey. 

Blowing up the balloon

Hovering away!

I hope you are able to do some of these, they really are fun and if you do, please share your results!

Happy flying!

The Garage Creative

rocket science

Today at The Garage Creative we experimented with Rocket Science. I have taught these engaging, fun, rockets many many times and they have never failed to leave the kids and adults wanting more. Below are the easy directions to build them so you can be a Rocket Scientist!

Our group of Rocket Scientists!

Rocket #1: Stomp Rockets

To build these collect the following items:

• Empty litter soda bottle or plastic milk jug, or empty mouthwash container (basically anything that holds a lot of air that can be stomped out quickly)
• Plastic flexible tubing (I used about a foot and half per stomp rocket)
• Toilet paper tubes
• Construction paper
• Duct Tape
• Crepe paper
• Double sided tape or hot glue (optional)
• Markers for decoration (optional)

Once you have the supplies there are two steps, first you need to make the "stomp" part. To do this, I duct tape the flexible tubing into the empty bottle making sure there is no possible way for air to escape (this will hinder the rockets ability to soar).

Now that you have the propulsion part, build the rocket! I like to give the kids different options to do this. They can use toilet paper tubes or build their own out of construction paper by rolling it into a tight fuselage.

Busy building

Putting the stomp in stomp rocket!

Whichever method is chosen (perhaps both) make sure there is no air escaping out of the nose cone and not to much is coming back out of the bottom.

I have found students like to add fins and streamers and to color their fuselage. Finally place the rocket at the end of the plastic tubing (not too far down) and stomp on the bottle!

Rocket #2: Bottle Rockets

• Empty 20 oz water, soda, barbecue sauce, salad dressing bottle, ..........
• Two different sizes of straws (one needs to slide over the other)
• Duct tape, clay, play doh, model magic......something to make a seal between the straw and bottle
• Any other item to add fins and nose cones (construction paper, notecards, cardboard)
• Super sweet safety glasses to prevent a rocket in the eye

The premise behind these is very similar to the stomp rockets but I have found they go farther and fly faster! Put the smaller straw in the empty bottle and somehow seal it so air does not escape. I like using model magic because it hardens. Sometimes when it hardens, it cracks so I will duct tape the outer layer. Slide the other straw on after you have fitted it with a nose cone and squeeze the bottle, not aiming it at someone!

Adding fins

Sliding the rocket into place

Rocket #3: Alka Seltzer Rockets

All of the rockets we built today were fun but for some reason, this type of rocket is always voted as the best. To build this correctly it is imperative to have the correct type of film canister (see picture). If you do not, the seal will not be tight enough and the pressure will not build up.

• Film canisters (can be found on eBay)
  
• Alka seltzer (can be generic)
• Water
• Super sweet safety goggles

The beauty of these rockets is the simplicity. All you need is the canister, water, and Alka seltzer. How much water and Alka seltzer used determines how fast the reaction will take place. If there is too much water or Alka seltzer the reaction will go too fast and you will not get the best results.

I have found the best result is to fill the canister about half full with water and put in a 1/4 of the Alka seltzer, turn in upside down and step back. To take this further, I like to add a second film canister and make a two stage rocket!

Adding extras

Launch pads

I hope you get a chance to do this, please let me know if you do and have fun!

Take off!

The Garage Creative
thegaragecreative@gmail.com