Science fair help!

[Kireihana]

Uh, well I guess this would fall under the "homework" category. I've got a science project due in two weeks (yes, I'm a horrible procrastinator) and was wondering if anyone had any good ideas for a project... I've done lots of internet searching but can never pull up anything interesting, or anything that can be done in two weeks time. So what I'm saying is

[Ashley]

Umm, hmm...my 2 science fair projects were "which of the following cleans pennies the best" (soap, water, coke) and "the pH balances of shampoos"...both of which flopped. So while I can't help ya, here's a website that might:

http://members.aol.com/ScienzFair/ideas.htm

[MyrrhLynn]

Here is a science fair experiment that is really easy, but it may not be challenging enough (I used it in like 7th grade I think): You test a person's taste buds. So you get something: sweet, sour, bitter(like grapefruit , and salty and mix each with water in a separate cup to make a solution.

Now I'm going to use sweet as an example: the person dips a q-tip in the sweet solution and has to jab it around on their tongue until they taste it. Then you have a tongue "diagram" that they mark the places where they tasted it. So you mix up the solutions, test a few people (like your family, lol) and you're done. You can even try putting the solutions out at the science fair so people can test themselves, but then you gotta make sure people don't double dunk. Gross!

[LorentzForce]

a Thompson gun never fails to amuse people.

it is simply a ring of metal (or a tube) on a coil of wire. so all you need is;

25 metres of insulated wire (get it at a local electronics shop, or salvage it from a broken microwave oven, get a thick one if possible, not those tiny thin ones)
a 12V car battery
a long smooth plastic/wooden pole
a circular cylinder shaped wood
and
a tiny _metal_ tubing just big enough to fit the pole.

and preferably a switch to make life easier. and safety equipment like rubber gloves and eye protectors.

make a hole in the cylinder at flat side, making sure the hole fits the pole perfectly. so now it looks like a hammer, just in this case the 'head' looks like it's tilted 90 degrees. now wind the coil around the cylinder, making sure it's always the same direction that is being wounded. place the short tubing so it's sliding around the wooden rod.

now connect the coil to the battery. theoritically, it should fly out. fly out really, really fast. so you should try to do this outside or at least have the pole aiming at something cushiony, like a real cushion. even then i cannot guarantee the life of the cushion for the next few seconds after shooting the ring out...

remember to disconnect the circuit immediately after it's fired, or else the battery will explode. and remember the safety precautions of always wearing rubber gloves, wear rubber shoes, and always put one hand in your pocket and operate this thing with the other hand.

[Kireihana]

Hey, thanks so much! All these experiments sound so much more interesting than the ones I've been finding. I'm really liking the taste-testing one so far (I'm in 8th grade so it'd probably be ok) but the others sound great too. I haven't decided what to do yet...

[LorentzForce]

just don't do what StrongBad did. feeding a depressed friend of yours caffeine.

[Saint Kevin]

Yeah Cephas, probably a bit advanced on the titration part. For example of you wanted to know how much phosphoric acid was in Coca-Cola, you could do a titration (after removing all the CO2 gas, as carbon dioxide and water form carbonic acid that will throw off your titration). For a proper titration, you'd need access to a graduated buret, and a basic solution (e.g. NaOH) of fixed molarity. You'd also need to know what molarity is of course, and you'd probably have to prepare the solution yourself). This is no small feat if you haven't taken a chemistry class and expect to get this done in two weeks. Long story short: This is probably not the best idea.

I will give you an example of a cool chemistry experiment that takes advantage of colligative properties. An explanation of colligative properties of solutions is well stated at the following website: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/chemical/collig.html

One colligative property in particular is freezing point depression. Freezing point depression is the reason that antifreeze dissolved in water prevents your car's coolant from freezing at subzero temperatures. It is also the reason that icy sidewalks will melt when salt is applied, and consequently, why mag chloride (MgCl2) is more effective than rock salt (NaCl) at melting snow and ice. For that reason you will see mag chloride used almost exclusively by a state highway department.

Anyway, back to the experiment. You can buy a 6-pack of club soda (in glass or plastic bottles, in order to see what happens). You take your club soda bottle (refrigerated) and submerge it in a solution of icy salty water. The salt will lower the freezing point (and consequently the temperature) of the ice water by a few degrees. The water (and the club soda after submerged long enough) will be below 0 degrees celsius, but not frozen because of the freezing point depression of the salt dissolved in the water (and the CO2 dissolved in the club soda). Hopefully if everything went according to plan, you can open the bottle of club soda, releasing the dissolved CO2 and raising the freezing point of the club soda back to the freezing point of normal water (0 C). Because the temperature of the club soda is still sub zero celsius, you will see the opened bottle of club soda quickly freeze before your eyes. There ya go. Easy experiment, cool scientific concept, and cool looking result.

I encourage you all to try this if you ever happen to have a bottle of club soda lying around.

Note: This will not work with regular soda as the dissolved sugar and other particles will keep the soda from freezing when you open it. Also, be careful that your club soda has nothing else except CO2 dissolved in it, as other dissolved substances can ruin your experiment.

Hopes this helps. If not, try it anyway because it looks cool.
Science Rocks!

[LorentzForce]

or how long it takes for different brands of batteries to explode when it's short-circuited.

[Saint Kevin]

Yeah...but what's the science behind that? Anyone can do a demo, but if you can't explain the science behind it, you probably won't do well in the fair. Seriously though, what determines how long batteries last when short-circuited?

[LorentzForce]

if it's based on mercury, alkarine or other means etc etc.

button cells VS lead battery cells VS normal AA paste cells, etc etc.

i'm pretty sure different chemical equations could be derived to explain why one or another beats one another in timing.

and blowing thing up always gives you at least 50%.

[Straylight]

I'm a university science student.. this is what I recommend you do:

























































Make something explode.

[Siren of Lyrics]

Why don't you just grow fungus in a petry dish?
It is the ultimate project for lazy or procrastinating students.

[LorentzForce]

see? Straylight agrees with me too.

attempting to fry different sized salt grain in cooking oil can also become a very fun and 'exciting' experiment. i've got plenty of science projects anyone can do that makes things explode or at least pop continuously...

[Saint Kevin]

I agree. Explosions are cool.
They're a lot harder to pull off in a demo for the judges though.
Interestingly, the reason why the Fahrenheit temperature scale has a lower (relative) freezing point for water than the celsius scale is because the zero was set at the freezing point of (I believe) a saturated salt water solution.

Super saturation is also cool. You can dissolve a crystalline solid (e.g. sugar) into a liquid (e.g. water) until no more solute will dissolve. Boil the solution and add slightly more solute. When cooled carefully without disturbing the solution. the solution will be super-saturated with the solute. When a solution is supersaturated with a solute, all it takes is one crystal of the original solute (e.g. sugar) to bring the all of the excess solute (past the point of saturation at room temperature) back into crystalline form. I don't know exactly what solute he used or how much, but my chemistry teacher Mr. Fennell used this property of solutions to create a stalagtite (sp?) in a beaker by carefully decanting (fancy word for saying pouring down a stirring rod) an extremely supersaturated solution into a beaker with a few crystals of the original solute. That was a cool and simple experiment, though you may want to practice it a few times to get it perfect.

Sorry no explosions guys.

Here's an explosion reaction for all you explosion junkies (Do not, I repeat DO NOT try this at home). Hehe...sugar make BOOM!

http://www.angelo.edu/faculty/kboudrea/demos/instant_fire/instant_fire.htm

Too much smoke, fire, and shattering pyrex (Pyrex!) to make a good science fair project, but cool nonetheless. I'd really like to see this done (by a professional) with a manganese catalyst, although I doubt anyone would be brave enough to be the one adding the sulfuric acid in such a fast reaction.

[wiggins]

I won a silver medal in an eigth grade science fair by doing a project on atoms. Try that.

[Bobtheduck]

I was in "Natural Sciences" class in high school (my sophomore year) and the nickname for the class was "Explosives 101"

Seeing what that sugar thing did in such small doses, I'd hate to see that in the hands of someone with malicious intent... But, I guess there are allready too many more efficient and probably cheaper ways of wreaking havoc, killing people, and ruining lives than that, so I guess I don't really have to worry... What really makes people do horrendous things like that is the evil in their hearts... The fact they had something so efficient to do it with isn't what made them do it... They would have used other methods if fertalizer or gunpowder or TNT were made illegal. Hate isn't created by science.

[Reverie]

Perhaps you could try an experiment demonstrating diffusion in cells (using chicken eggs, soaked in vinegar for 24 hours, as a model cell).

Or, add potassium iodide to hydrogen peroxide and liquid soap. Bubbles galore!
[Note: these may not be the correct ingredients. I saw this experiment on television a long time ago and don't exactly remeber which substances were used.]

[shooraijin]

> the nickname for the class was "Explosives 101"

In high school AP biology, there was only two of us (small school) and the teacher knew we knew the stuff already, so most of the year was spent making fulminate of mercury and blowing up petri dishes off the second floor railing. (We both got fives on the AP exam. )

One school science project I remember with painful recollection was a fruit-fly genetics project I was assigned to do either in freshman bio (high school) or 8th grade, I don't remember which. In any event, we were sent home with them over Christmas break, and the day after break started, the flies were all dead. Initially I panicked, then realized that the teacher had given us the genetics of the parent flies ahead of time by mistake. Using a Punnett square, I computed out what the offspring should look like, twiddled the numbers for sample size and experimental error, flushed out the fly equipment, turned the paper in with my totally bogus results the first day back to school, and got an A. I don't *think* the teacher ever found out ...

For elementary school, I did an "air has weight" experiment which was ludicrously simple -- just put balloons on a scale. It was enough to placate the teacher, anyway.

[Kireihana]

O.O What a lot of replies! Thanks! As for the gun thing that LorentzForce suggested, that might actually be a good idea since my teacher (being a southern guy) is into hunting and all that stuff. I remember last year a boy did a project with a spud gun and my teacher really liked it. Of course *I* would never use the subject of a project to influence my grade ...

Blowing things up... sounds like fun! But I'm not exacly sure how to base an experiment on something like that. (And the farthest I've ever gotten to blowing something up was with a chocolate bar and my grandma's microwave. *bad memories*)

I can't do an experiment with animals because I have no idea where I could get some in just two weeks. And there aren't many bugs around outside this time of year.

So I think it's come down to this:
Do some kind of survey project, like human behavior/types experiments
Make a gun?
Blow something up (what blows up better, Jolly Ranchers or mashed potatoes??!)

The problem is our experiments have to have controls and independent and dependent variables. So I can't just make something, I have to test two things. But thanks you guys, you've given me some interesting topics to look up on!

[Ashley]

You could always do the effect music has on plants--like whether playing music to one plant will make it grow faster than it's counterpart (the controlled elements--same species, same position, same amount of sunlight and water, etc.) or even if different types of music effects plant growth. My best friend did this one in junior high. And plus it'd be easy--buy two cheap potted plants at your local garden store (african violets are small and easy) and grab your cd player.

[LorentzForce]

my gun if done right should be making metal tubes fly at around 20 metres per second. that is quite fast, and shouldn't be done for fun but who cares when you can hunt with it.

if you need variables and such 'testing' things, just do something like how numbers of coils and possibly amount of layers effects the muzzle velocity of the ring. if you have the patience to coil things around and around a block of wood for quite a while it would be worth it.

oh, and i wouldn't bother with equations with the gun. it is quite complex when you add in finding maximum efficiency a gun could be made with certain length of wire... requires calculus and physics equations. which should be WAY beyond scope for a year eight student. maybe ten, but not eight.

just don't make it into a 'portable' gun. it can be VERY dangerous when you use capacitors along with this; i've seen people shooting things fast enough to pierce aluminium cans, and that aimed at people can be very very dangerous.

[Kireihana]

Oh boy. Not another hunting and gun addict. It's enough that I live with one, and half the popluation in my town are hunting addicts, and it's all about the latest model or who's got the best huntin' dog (that would be me *grin, grin*). Eh, well, I'm kinda shy around guns... ever since the recoil on just a 28 gage knocked me over a couple years ago (I'm such a wimp)... hey, I'm in it for the dogs. *hugs her setter pup*

[LorentzForce]

actually, i like guns (read: BIG guns) only because some have high velocity (namely the unconventional weapons...). i like seeing things go fast. real fast. and faster and faster and faster and... probably why i prefer rave songs over most other genres of music. just me really...

i'm not much of a hunter. only practical place i'd use my guns on are... maybe shoo

there's just something cool about seeing a kilo of graphite soaring through the sky at speeds over a kilometre per second. although i haven't seen one in front of my eyes, i'd want to see a real one soon.

[Saint Kevin]

How about the effect of refrigeration (aka temperature) on food spoilage. You could do it for a variety of foods (aka bread, cheese, vegetables, fruit, meat (raw and cooked). You could even do it on bread, and see if sunlight has anything to do with mold growth.

Independent variable = temperature and type of food
Dependent variable = time to spoil

Don't immediately dismiss this. There are actually food chemists (who get paid a lot of money) whose job basically boils down to this.

Food for thought.

[Dante]

Doesn't anybody find capacitors and explosives, a little dangerous. Recently in PHY 151 I observed an extremely large capacitor discharge and vaporize the metal off a screw driver in a hot white flash. Just think what that could do to your hand, also gas explosives are equally potient against your eyes and other have a way of freaking out teachers into believing you're going to go ballistic.

Anyways to offer an alternative I'd suggest a look at snell's law. snells law states n1sin(theta1)=n2sin(theta2) theoretically so it will require a small amount of trig. However the idea is fairly simple to varify, and can prove to be very interesting in describing such things as the distortion from water waves of objects beneath them. For instance you might get several substances (water and a plane of glass are really good ones) then take a beam of light (laser diodes work really well) and shine it through.

Now using one of those round things that allow you to measure angles, measure the angle theta between your light in air and your light in water or glass.

now you can set you air angle to sin(0)*1 (as air has the approximate value of 1 for it's index of refraction) and then place your second angle in for the other value of theta and solve for n2 algebraically.

You should get something like 1.333 for water and 1.5 for glass. Not only is this simple (esspecially if you have a calculator) it should also be fast. Try out some other substances and also take a look at how light is affect by substances in a physics book from your local library. Hope this helps and God be with you,
Pascal

[LorentzForce]

>Doesn't anybody find capacitors and explosives, a little dangerous. Recently in PHY 151 I observed an extremely large capacitor discharge and vaporize the metal off a screw driver in a hot white flash. Just think what that could do to your hand, also gas explosives are equally potient against your eyes and other have a way of freaking out teachers into believing you're going to go ballistic.

Exactly why I play with them.

[Dante]

Rats I messed up... and I call myself a physics major. The actual (correct) way to do the above experiment is to shine the light beam into a flat plane of material and measure the angle in the material and the angle of the light relative to a line perpendicular to the the plane of material (it makes a 90 degree angle with the water)

Now take several measurements of the different angles from starting at 0 degrees from the top and going down to 90 degrees. using snells law with theta of light beam in air on the same side as the refraction of air (1) and the angle of water on the side of the n of water theoretically 1.333.

In compensation for my idiocracy I provide yet another interesting thought proccess. It turns out that your nwater(or other material) = c/v where c is the speed of light 3.0 * 10^8 m/s and v is the speed of light in that material thus you can make an estimate to the speed of light in your water.

error from the expected results can be calculated from ((Expected n - Actual n)/Actual n)*100% . These are always chalked up to two things human error and bad water or glass (actually in our area the mass amount of calcite really wacked things up in the experiment) anyways sorry
Pascal

[purplemoose]

must stop reading too advanced head going to explode (that would hurt )im in 7th grade and this is giving me a migrane i'll stick to the easy math science questions for now walks away holding head and swallowing ten tylenols at a time

[purplemoose]

yea i also think i failed a math quiz today i didnt get any of the stuff i suck at math realy bad comp help me escape school and unwind thank god for comp invr\enter ppl

[purplemoose]

inventer that is