Getting a hard boiled egg into a bottle

This was an experiment I saw online a few years back, and I've always wanted to try it.

Q: How can you get an egg to fit into a bottle with an opening smaller than the egg?
A: Science!  Check it out!

Materials:

• Open mouth bottle - large enough for an egg to squeeze through it, but small enough to seal the top with an egg.  ***Please do not use a container that once held alcohol!***
• Matches (for adult use only)
• 1 peeled hard boiled egg*

Methods:

• Light a match (or 3 in our case).
• Carefully place match(es) into bottle.
• Cover the top with a hard boiled egg.
• Watch and note what happens

Notes:

• We used a 32 oz Gatorade bottle (note J's red juice mustache).
• We used rice as a "padding" for the fire since I was afraid that plastic burns.
• We didn't show it, but one match didn't heat up the bottle enough to do anything.  3 matches worked well.

Results:

• Video 1:

• We had so much fun, J wanted to do it again! Queue video 2:

Discussion:

• The fire from matches heats up the bottle, and having the egg on top of the bottle helps extinguish the fire.
• As the bottle cools, the air contracts, pulling the egg into the bottle.
• The trick then becomes seeing if you can get the egg back out.  We cut it up to get it out and properly recycled the bottle.
• My favorite part of the experiment was the surprise when the egg got sucked in completely.  POP!

*edited to add this note: hard boiled eggs peel better when they are a few days old (something I didn't know since I don't eat eggs).

Sensory - Hard Boiled Eggs

Easter will be J's first one with hard boiled eggs (again, I really don't like eating just eggs).  I decided to practice my egg making abilities (to which my husband said something to the extent of the whites tasting fine but the yolks were interesting...so, I guess it wasn't great?)

For science, I decided to give J a hard boiled egg to see what he'd do with it.

Here's what happened:

My goal for this experiment was to see if he:
1. Knew just by looking that this egg was different than the ones he puts in his cookies.
2. Can figure out how to peel the egg with his hands.
3. Likes the taste of a hard boiled egg.

The results:
1. Nope, he tried to crack it like any typical raw egg.
2. Nope, that was too complicated for him.  I'm barely able to do it.
3. In terms of taste, it wasn't a hit though his first response was, "I like it!" It quickly grew into, "I don't like it."

Things you can incorporate:
1. Talk about the different textures of the hard boiled egg (slimy/smooth white, gritty-like yolk)
2. Add flavor (salt/pepper/other favorite spices) - how did that change the taste?
3. Cook different style eggs and talk about the differences in cooking methods and outcomes (texture, taste, etc).

Balloon Rockets, part 2

As promised, Balloon Rockets, had a part 2.  Not only is it fun to watch balloons fly all over the room, it's fun to direct their path with strings.  What are we learning with this demo?  For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction (Newton's Third Law).  The air escapes out of the balloon, propelling it forward.

Materials:

• Balloon(s) (balloon pump optional)
• String (we used embroidery floss and plain old cheap yarn)
• Straw piece
• Scotch tape

Set-up:

• Tie string to something immovable (we used a toy ride-in car and a plastic mug filled with laundry quarters, not shown).
• Put straw piece on string.
• Hold other end, making the string as tight as possible - slack in the string doesn't give good results.
• Blow up balloon, twist and pinch the end. 
• Attach balloon to straw with two pieces of Scotch tape.
• Count down and let go.
• Observe what happens!

Variations:

• Slack the rope (giving the other end of the string to the kid to hold will most likely do this).
• Try different sized balloons, note the differences.
• Try different shaped balloons, note the differences.
• Try different sized straw pieces.  Which size works the best?

Warnings:

• String the string across the room, above or out of the main walkway - or take down when not in use.  The string is very tempting for a young child and can cause injuries if not careful.

**Please excuse the apartment mess.  Our science workshop is in full gear.

Homemade Squeeze Rocket Launchers

Tada - homemade squeeze rocket launcher:

Materials:
Small water bottle
Small straw (comes in a pack of 50-100 for ~$1 in most grocery stores)
Bigger straw (recycled from a McD's soda)
Small sticker

Launcher Assembly:
*Drill a hole, with similar size diameter as your straw, into the cap of the water bottle.
*Cut the small straw down to ~3 inches.
*Insert straw into newly made hole.
*Glue the straw into place (optional).

Rockets:
*Various size straws closed off completely on one end with a small sticker. (You can vary length/diameter, but the diameter of the rocket needs to be large enough to easily come off of the smaller straw with a squeeze of the bottle).
*Nerf-ish rockets (these too are fairly cheap - we found a pack at Fry's around Christmas that we've been using with our other rocket launchers too).

Notes:
*The launcher works better with one quick hard squeeze.
*Plastic water bottles are poor quality plastic and deform really easily.
*You can blow into the straw to quickly reform the bottle (demonstrated in video below).
*I don't recommend gluing the cap onto the bottle since you might want to stick a long skinny to recover the bottle shape.
*Ultimately it takes 2 minutes to put together, so it's not worth getting frustrated over the bottle.

Variations:
*Alter the length and diameters of the straw rockets being launched.  Note the differences between the rockets.
*Decorate the straws being launched.
*Give the straws fins and wings.  How does that change the flight of the rocket?
*Aim for a target.
*How high can you launch the rocket to the sky?

Here's a video of Big and Little J launching the rockets.  It's hard to capture the flight of the rocket.  The first launch was the Nerf-like rocket and the second was the straw:

Balloon Rockets, part 1

This is a great way to get the kids to giggle (and exercise your lungs).

Take a balloon blow it up (you'll probably be doing this over and over and over again since your small child won't have the lung capacity to do it on his/her own)***.

Before you demonstrate the awesomeness of our crazy balloon, ask your child if he/she knows what will happen if you let go of the balloon.  Wait for an answer.  It gets them hypothesizing (making educational guesses).

Let go of the balloon and see what happens.

Things to try:

• Different size balloons (you can do this also without different balloons, just blow up half way, full, etc).
• Different shaped balloons (round, oval, long balloons used for making animals).
• Different colors of the same type of balloon (trust me, colors are important to little kids).

Discuss:  What happened?  How do the balloons react each time?

Then try:

• Can you put something on the balloon to slow down the reaction?
• Can you aim the balloon to try to hit a target?

***This might be a good time to invest in a balloon pump too because inevitably your child will try to blow up the balloon, give up, and pass it over to you to blow up.

Also, please be careful of balloons with really small kids.  They are a choking hazard, especially popped balloon pieces.

And, if you noticed this is Part 1 of Balloon Rockets, you'll just have to stay tuned for part 2 which is known and on tap for experimentation later in the month.

Video for Celebration Helicopters

Sorry it took two weeks to pull the (dark, sorry) video from my camera.

Here's the addendum for Celebration Helicopters.  Happy New Year!

"You get up high..."  Twirly twirly twirly.

Bicycles

I may have stretched the science limits on boxes just a little, but I still think they are an awesome learning tool for babies and young children.  Now, I'll convince you that the bike that comes in the box is also science!

Major science points:

*Transfer of energy (metabolic to kinetic)

*Kinetics and kinematics (fancy terms for motion)

*Newton's first law (an object in motion stays in motion - until an outside force, ie. brakes, parked cars, bushes, etc., acts upon it)

*Balance and coordination

*Anatomy - we ALWAYS need to wear helmets to protect our brains.  We might want to use padding on other non-cushioned areas of the body, like the elbows, knees, or shins.

Major engineering points:

*Bike design - point out the parts of the bikes and what each part does

*Bike maintenance - how to take care of your bike so you can ride it for a long time

*How many wheels does your bike have?  Does it act differently if you have a different number of wheels (for example, training wheels vs. no training wheels)

Other important things to discuss (not really science):

*We always wear our helmets, or we don't ride bikes.

*We do not bike without Mommy or Daddy/responsible adult around.

*We always stop and pull to the side if there's a car in motion until the responsible adult says it's ok to go back riding.

Mainly, I wanted to show you that a two year old can ride a two-wheeler (queue proud Mommy moment):

Straw Rockets

The waitress was asking for it by putting a handful of straws in front of a group of boys.

However, being a little mischievous (and bored) myself, I started it.

This is also for every action (blowing into the straw), there's an equal and opposite reaction (the straw flies off - preferably hitting an unsuspecting friend/family member).

Note, it works best if you take off one end of the straw wrapper gently (ie, not pounding the straw into the table to get it out of the wrapper).  We ended up reusing the straw wrappers so we weren't as wasteful.

Things to try:

• Vary the amount of pressure through the straw.  Blow harder, blow softer.  What happens?
• Aim and shoot at a target - preferably not at people's faces.
• Try blowing through big straws and little straws with wrappers.  Do you see any differences?  Why do you think that could be?

Science is fun!

Sail cars

J was getting antsy and instead of letting him destroy the house, I decided to build him a quick sail car.

And then he played around with it, even naming it "Lightning McQueen."  My only guess for the name was due to how fast it went!  Here's a video demonstration.  Have your child blow as though they are blowing out candles on a birthday cake.

Main take away from lesson: for every action (blowing on the sail) there's an equal and opposite reaction (the car moves!).

Here's how you can make your own sail car out of recyclables.

Materials

• Cardboard box (non-corrugated) - I used an empty contact solution box
• 2 wooden skewers (for kabobs, or in our case, chocolate fountain dipping)
• Masking tape
• Scissors

Directions:

• Cut out the bottom of a box (keep it intact so you don't have to assemble a body of the car).
• With the remainder of the box, I cut a sail and 4 circular wheels (I used small playdough containers to trace my circles).
• Very carefully cut your skewers to a size where they'd make good axles for the car - cut off the pointy side too, for safety, while you are at it.
• With the pointy side of the skewer, puncture your circles in the middle of the circle (don't hole punch these - you want them to be a tight fit on the skewer so they roll/move with the axle).
• Attach one wheel to each circle.
• Single hole punch 4 holes for the axles - 2 in the front and 2 in the back (make the holes relatively straight across from each other).
• Insert the axles and attach the other wheels.
• Position your wheels so they aren't touching the side of the car (friction) or falling off of the axles.  You want them to be as straight as possible.
• Tape the ends of your axles, so your wheels don't pop off.
• With left over skewer parts (axle "rejects"), tape a piece of skewer to your sail and attach it to your car.  I found masking tape works best.
• Mark and X or put a sticker where you want your child to blow if they are having problems directing their sail car.

This to play around with

• Shape of the sail
• Direction of the sail
• Where to blow on the sail (use a mini fan if your child can't blow hard enough)
• Weight in car
• Weight of car (downsize if it's not working)
• Race your car(s) - who can go fastest/furthest with one blow?
• Navigate your car through a maze
• Decorate your sail car (not sciency, but keeps them out of trouble for a few more minutes and make it theirs)

I'd love to hear feedback of how your home sail car project went.

Baking Soda + Vinegar = Blows up Balloon

I initially wanted to do vinegar + baking soda power boats (which we did too - another lesson), but we had some vinegar and baking soda left over and decided to try blowing up the balloon from the products of the reaction. We got the idea for this experiment from www.apple-cider-vinegar-benefits.com (though we did use normal vinegar).  J was excited to have a balloon for his house.

The products of baking soda and vinegar are water (H2O) + carbon dioxide (CO2).  The CO2 gas is what fills the balloon.

Surprising: Notice how the balloon bounces at the end.  The balloon filled with CO2 from the chemical reaction is heavier than the reaction products of breathing air or helium (the two ways we would normally blow up balloons).  It also sounds different as it bounces.  Tie it off and experiment!  See if your child can tell the differences between a balloon blown up with air from our lungs versus one blown up from the baking soda + vinegar experiment.

Here's what we did for the experiment:

*Fill the balloon with baking powder (we didn't measure - but it was enough to fill up the tip of the balloon).
*Fill the bottle 1/4 full of vinegar
*Attach the balloon to the top of the bottle without letting the baking soda fall into the bottle yet
*Tip the balloon so the baking soda falls into the vinegar
*Watch the reaction
*Comment on the reaction

Vary the amount of vinegar/baking soda/size of balloon and try again!

Edited 1/26/14 to Note: This post has become very popular with Pinterest. The pin links to this blog post, but the picture is not mine (after some research, I found it on Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas and want to give them credit). For the record, I did not start that particular Pinterest pin with someone else's picture nor did I link it as an alternative to helium for party balloons. I apologize to disappoint. I want to ensure you that CO2 is HEAVIER/more dense than air, which means it's heavier/more dense than helium (as stated above in my original post). It will not float. The main point of this experiment is the chemical reaction between baking soda and vinegar. The CO2 gas fills up the balloon and the now water stays in the bottle. It is a fun and easy experiment for anyone who loves science. Enjoy!!

Related Post:

• Baking soda and vinegar power boats
• Scientific observations of different balloons

Fan 2011

Good to know that the fan can still keep J's interest over a year later.

He's into kicking the floating ball nowadays, but he likes to keep it floating.

Yes, we did get a new, more powerful fan and the floating ball works so much better (and our house is MUCH cooler - double win!).  The original fan is still in commission on the other side of the apartment hoping for any sort of cross breeze.  And for safety, J knows that he is not allowed to touch the fan.

Fan Box

I ordered a bunch of cheap personal fans and they arrived 2 weeks later than anticipated (so I didn't have them for my Sail Boats activity with J's class last month).  However, we had to try them out to see if they worked.  They didn't seem too powerful, so the first thing I picked up to try to blow over was the box it came in.  It worked.

J decided this was a great game to play.

After the camera stopped rolling, J played for 20 minutes with the fan and the box, which was a nice distraction while I cooked dinner.  Then afterward, we had the battle of the fans.  I took a fan and J took a fan.  Then we tried to see who could blow over the box first while on opposite sides of the fan box.  It resulted in much laughter.  Now, every few days, he'll find the fan and it's box and remember this game.

Lessons from this quick science experiment:
*Wind creates forces that can move/knock over objects.
*Where do you aim to knock over the box?
*Can you move the box with the fan without tiping it over?

Exploding Soda!

I've been dying to try out Mentos and Diet Coke Geysers for years. However, Diet Coke wasn't going to get me a handful of power votes (the power votes work I promise). Here's a video of how easy it is. My two-year-old, J, can do it!

Steve Spangler explains that the reaction is caused by the small pockets of air "pits" in the Mentos candy that allows a lot of bubbles from the carbonation to form, basically releasing the gas from the soda bottle, causing a fountain.

It's really fun to try.

First you take a soda bottle and place it somewhere where a giant wet mess is going to be ok (aka the grass in a local park).

Then open the soda top (which you would save for a power vote towards Nerdy Science).

Then pop some Mentos candies into the bottle (1 will work, 2 is a little better, >2 seems a little wasteful)

Run away

Watch the explosion

Repeat (over and over and over again).

Just be careful the camera person is not in the line of action:

Things to experiment with:
1. Different sodas (warning: sugar soda leaves an icky, sticky mess).
2. Different sized bottles/cans.
3. Amount of Mentos added to soda (we started with a whole roll, but it seemed to give us a good reaction with even just 1 or 2).
4. Try different kinds of Mentos (fruit/mint).
5. Taste the soda before and after the Mentos experiment:

6. Taste the diet soda flavored Mentos.
7. Compare the Mentos you threw in the soda to fresh Mentos.
8. How high can you get the soda to shoot? Set a target to aim for. Adjust the size of the nozzle (hint: smaller diameter).

----
Edited 6/30/13 to remove Pepsi Refresh Voting tag. Voting has long since ended.

P.S. I love you guys. Thanks for all of your support!

Race car ramp

All you need is a paper towel tube, some packaging tape, a raised surface, and a smallish object that rolls (but not too small...don't want anyone to choke).  We used a decent sized bouncy ball and a matchbox car.

Cut the paper towel tube in half and tape together with packaging tape.  Place to your desired height on a raised surface.  Race away!

Here's a video demonstration for you.

J plays California ramp in the middle (earthquake) - but that's the joy of this experiment - kids can take apart and fix the ramp to their heart's content.

Things to play with and consider:
*Height of ramp
*Where you start the object on the ramp (related to height too)
*Weight of object
*Type of object rolling
*Surface the object ends up on after the ramp
*The ramp might tip depending on slope of the ramp and momentum of the car - it's a very cheap yet entertaining science project, so no complaining.  If it bothers you too much, change where you start your object, change the angle of the ramp, or tape down the underside of the ramp.

Concepts: (in case you have a really curious 2 year old and want to sound smart to your child and give him/her new vocabulary)


Transfer of Energy:

• Potential Energy is mass x gravity x height (an object placed up high will potentially fall down), the higher it is or the heavier it is, the more potential energy it has.
• Kinetic Energy is 1/2 x mass x velocity squared (kinetic is a fancy term for "motion" - once in motion, an object has velocity)

In an ideal world, the energy will transfer perfectly, meaning Potential Energy = Kinetic Energy, for our ramp set-up.  However, our world is less than ideal.  We have to deal with losses, mostly due to friction, which is the roughness of our surface.  Measuring losses would be another lesson for a little bit older age group (we did it in college physics) but it is doable with knowing all your variables listed above (you can measure velocity with photogates).***

Questions:
*What happens when you raise the ramp or start the object higher on the ramp?
*What happens when you try a different object on the ramp?  Which object rolled better?  Why do you think that is?
*What happens when you put your ramp on carpet vs. tile?  Maybe you can measure the differences.  This is where you can mention friction and why the object didn't roll as far on the carpet though you started it in the same place.

Race away, my friends!


***Just in case you want to be challenged
Energy Equation: P.E. = K.E. + E.Losses,
so algebraically: E.Losses = P.E.-K.E.

Doing science

All weekend, J was running around the house saying, "Doing science!! Yay!!  Yay!!  Yay!!"  This was about as good as I could get on camera.  I am soooo happy that J loves science so much.

Goo!!!

We're planning J's birthday party for this weekend. We decided to do a test-run on one of the activities, Goo! Seeing that J's friends are all 2-3 years old and J's first reaction to the playdough, I wanted to make sure whatever goo recipe we selected was non-toxic. There were quite a few out there with Borax and white glue, but this seems to be a consistent non-toxic recipe.

Non-Borax Goo Recipe:
2 parts corn starch
1 part water (varying reports of cool/warm water - we used warm, but not boiling)
As much food coloring as you want

For the amount shown in the pictures we used:
1 cup corn starch
1/2 cup water
5-6 drops blue food coloring

Recommendation:
Add food coloring to water, as it will be difficult to stir in if you wait until you have the right texture. We learned this the hard way.  You might need to mix the goo with your hands.

Hands-on science in progress!

Warning, this science fun is very messy.

Don't worry, it cleans up with some water - or even better, put down some plastic.

Storage:
Best if used right after you mix it, but you can store it in a plastic ziploc bag and massage it before you decide to use.  If it dries out, add a few drops of water and mix (best if you use your hands).

Warning:
This did dye our hands!!

Also note:
The corn starch + water has a very weird texture.  At first, it looks almost too liquidy and flows very nicely.  Touch it!  It seems like it has a high surface tension.

This video was taken after about 30 minutes of playing with the goo.  It definitely looks more liquidy when you first mix it.

J helped clean up too:

Balloons + Fan = Fun!

J decided to experiment with our downed helium balloons. It was quite entertaining for the both of us.

Shadows!

**Edited 4-10-11 to add shadow jumping video**

Not too long ago, we were complaining of 2 months of continuous rain.  We never saw the sun.  This week we jumped from low 60s and rain to almost 80 and SUNSHINE!!  (Being a Vegas kid, I really, really missed the sun).

I've been letting J play outside during what I call the "witching hours" - where if we are inside, he'd have a meltdown and I would say things that make me feel like the worst parent ever.  Usually, we're on a bike or playing with a ball.  Well, today, J took a break from his play to say "Hi!" to his shadow.  It's so fun to see how novel everything is to a little kid.

Things to try with your shadow:
*Run towards your shadow.  Then run away.
*Shadow puppets.
*Note the different lengths of the shadow during different times of the day.  Which time of the day casts the longest shadows?
*Jump/stomp on your shadow (J's favorite).  This is really fun to watch and can actually keep a kid occupied for quite some time.
*Jump/stomp on Mama's shadow.
*Stand in one spot and face north (your shadow should face north at noon if you are in the Northern Hemisphere) or in the same orientation (facing a particular tree).  Mark with sidewalk chalk where the top of your head is each hour.  Can you tell time with your shadow?  Possibly draw a sidewalk chalk clock.

Enjoy the sun!!  And, wear your sunscreen!! Wow, now I sound like a real mom.

Sound Amplification

J loves hearing his voice and playing with tubes.

Why is your voice louder when you speak through a tube?
*The tube focuses the sound waves in one direction rather than the sound waves bouncing around the room before they hit your ear (my interpretation from the many websites explaining this concept to kids).
*This explanation is simple enough for kids.  However, there's a whole division of engineering focused on acoustics.  I also know how fun fluid dynamics could be, and so, I'm sure it's way more complicated than just "focusing the sound waves."  I just don't want mean comments.

Anyways, there's a lot that you can do with experimenting with tubes and sound!

What to try at home with your scientist:
*Speak into tubes of various sizes in length: toilet paper tube, paper towel tube, wrapping paper tube.
*Speak into tubes of various materials: paper towel tube, PVC pipe, plastic hosing.
*Speak into tubes of various diameters: PVC pipe would be good for this.  They sell it in varying diameters, and it's super cheap.  Or, maybe you have some lying around from various projects.
*Whisper, talk normally, talk loudly, sing songs, have fun!

Which makes the best amplification sound?
*I'm not telling.  Guess you'll have to experiment.

And for all you Mommies who need a muffler for your kid, Grief Speaks has just the solution: a scream box!**


**Again, we have yet to try this out.  I don't want to suggest anything that could make J squeal louder than he already does.  We're working on inside voices.  Maybe one day we'll try it, but he'll have to use it only outside (even if it muffles his scream).

Boom Box

This game about Moments, which J coined "Boom Box," turns out to be pretty fun.

I like to think of Moments as "What can you tip?"  The basic science behind this game is:

Moment = force x distance

Ultimately, the force applied at a distance rotates the object.

J taught me this lesson in moments upon climbing into the diaper box.  I figured to let him experiment but that I'd be there for spotting and encouragement.

Some fun things to try:

*Stand on your knees and push on the box.
*Stand up and push on the box (this changes the distance of the center of mass - the force - to axis of rotation)
*Try to rotate about long side of the box.  Is it the same or different as rotating over the short edge?
*Can you balance on the edge of the box?


Note, J was not harmed in his experiments.  Luckily, we have soft carpet.  I learned to start the camera, and then place J in the box.  This required a little more editing on my end.