Before we left for our cruise Devin had a few long term homework assignments to complete. One of them was his "Scientist of the Week" experiment. While watching Bonnie Hunt one day I saw a segment with Bill Nye the Science Guy and he did a cool experiement with a film canister and baking powder. I told Devin about it and he was all about "blowing something up" (ack). Problem was I couldn't find the exact instructions/measurements.
In a way, this became a good problem as he had to really work it like an experiment. How much baking powder? How much water? How do you do it all without shooting your eye out? We had a lot of failed trials, but that's how we learn best, right?
Well, bless his heart he finally looked at my baking powder can and realized it expired in 2003 (note to all of you, check your baking powder dates). Well, we got some new powder and lo and behold, that was the biggest issue. It seriously, never occurred to me.
He was SO into this experiement, it was lots of fun. It was REALLY cold when we were trying it (outside, of course) and I took some pix from the window as he did test runs.
I'm not sure, but I think we have a science lover in the house! He gets to do it for his class today, can't wait to hear how it goes. It's a delicate timing issue to get the cap fully on and down on the ground before it goes off. Let me tell you, this thing will fly like 20-30 feet in the air. I'll post about his results!
3 comments:
next up Mentos and Diet Coke! can't wait to hear how it went.
I was just thinking tha about the Mentos and Diet Coke! Very fun. Hope it goes well for the class demo!
UPDATE: He did it today and the first one didn't work. But the second one went very high. Apparently his classmates thought it was pretty cool. It's hard to get info out of a boy though...
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