Fun Home Experiment: Split a Penny in Twain!

Use your head when doing this experiment. An ounce of prevention and all that.

File off the edge of a 1982 or later penny. You'll see the silvery zinc underneath. Drop the filed penny into a small glass with hydrochloric acid in it (get some Muriatic acid from the paint store--it's something like 37% HCl). BE CAREFUL with this stuff, it's very caustic.

You'll see the penny bubbling away as the zinc and HCl react. The copper won't react with the HCl, however. Let the penny bubble until it stops (mine took about 90 minutes). Run the water in your sink at full blast and SLOWLY decant the acid out of the glass and into the sink. Use a metal strainer if you can't pour slowly enough to prevent your penny-copper-foils from pouring out. DON'T add water to your acid in the glass. That's bad.

Rinse the penny foils thoroughly and check them out! COOL! The picture seems mundane until you consider that it is of both sides of the same penny.

Two Easy Physics Experiments to Try at Home from Pow!Science!

Each month, Pow!Science! offers fun, free Family Science Nights, where parents and kids sit down together to perform 3 engaging, hands ON experiments.

Find out when the next FSN is happening on our Events Calendar. If you can't make it to a Family Science Night, try the two simple Physics Experiments below!

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Two Cool Experiments to See Just How Things Work



Experiment ONE: Lift Heavy with Light


Get these Materials Ready:

• Marble*

• Ball of Clay, larger & heavier than the marble

• Empty Spool or an empty toilet/paper towel roll (you’ll need a longer string
if you use a paper towel roll)

• String, about 12 inches long (longer can be hazardous)

• Tape

* If you don't have a marble handy, the experiment can also be performed with two balls of clay; one smaller, one larger.


Do These Steps:


1) Tape one end of the string to the marble (use plenty of tape to make sure it’s
secure).

2) Thread the string through the spool, and then attach (using tape if necessary)
the other end of the string to the ball of clay.

READ THIS, then TRY IT:

Even though the clay ball is heavier than the marble, you can use the
marble to support the ball by holding the spool and spinning the marble around
like a lasso. Practice lifting the clay ball by “marble spin power”. Can you make
the clay ball stay at a constant height? Try it!




Experiment TWO: Up Against the Wall!



Get these Materials Ready:

A Paper Towel, handkerchief or any small object

A Partner



Do These Steps:

1) Stand with your heels right up against a wall.

2) Have your partner place the paper towel about 30 centimeters in front of your
toes.

3) Try and bend down WITHOUT BENDING YOUR KNEES and pick up the
paper towel. PARTNER: Be ready to help keep experimenter from falling!


What Happens?


4) Now stand about 60 centimeters away from the wall, and repeat the
experiment with the paper towel.



What happens this time?

Lego Behind the Scenes Factory Video! Must see of Lego Maniacs!

Lego is still the most popular toy ever. Even though their patent recently ran out, resulting in a spate of competition, the quality control and sheer "cool factor" of Lego still makes it the 800 Pound Gorilla of the Building Toy World: Check out this must-see behind the scenes video!

Bed Bugs-Not just for the New York Carriage Trade! $8.95 & Free Shipping!

Lately you've heard about bed bugs showing up in posh (and not so posh) locations countrywide, notably in Manhattan.

Well, even if your address isn't fancy, you can have a Bedbug all your own from Pow!Science...but ours are the cute cuddly kind and come with Free Shipping as a bonus!

Giant Microbes Bedbug: $8.95 shipped

Fun Free Experiment from Pow!Science

If you couldn't make it to this month's Family Science Night at either Pow!Science! Location, here's a little taste of what went down last night in Providence. Gather some simple materials and perform two quick, easy & fun experiments at home!

Experiment ONE: BALL LIFTER

Get This Stuff Ready:
• Marble
• Rubber Ball (like a super ball, no more than 1 inch diameter)
• Empty Spool or an empty toilet/paper towel roll (you’ll need a longer string if you use a paper towel roll)
• String
• Tape

Do This:

1) Tape one end of the string to the marble (use plenty of tape to make sure it’s secure).
2) Thread the string through the spool, and then tape the other end of the string to the rubber ball.
3) Even though the ball is heavier than the marble, you can use the marble to support and even lift up the ball by holding the spool and spinning the marble around like a lasso.

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Experiment TWO: Up Against the Wall!

Get This Ready:

A Paper Towel
A Partner

Do This:

1) Stand with your heels right up against a wall.
2) Have your partner place the paper towel about 30 centimeters in front of your toes.
3) Try and bend down WITHOUT BENDING YOUR KNEES and pick up the paper towel. PARTNER: Be ready to help keep experimenter from falling!

What Happened?

4) Now stand about 60 centimeters away from the wall, and repeat the experiment with the paper towel.
What happened this time?

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Pow!Science! offers free, fun Family Science Nights every month at both our Wakefield and Providence Locations. Check our online Events Calendar to learn about this and other Pow!Science Workshops & Activities.

Classic Slime!
Parents: Read it through before performing this experiment!

Purpose: To create a fun-to-play with polymer

Materials:

Bowl
2 400ml Beakers (or 2 glasses/cups/empty jars of equal size)
Spoon
White Glue
Borax
Water
Food Coloring
Zip-lock style plastic bag
Funnel (optional)

Procedure:

1) Fill one beaker about halfway with glue. Add water until the beaker is nearly full, and gently stir until the water and glue are thoroughly mixed.
2) Add 4 or 5 drops of food coloring to the glue/water mixture and stir until the color is evenly distributed.
3) Pour your colored glue mixture into the bowl.
3) Fill the other beaker halfway with water. Add 4 heaping spoonfuls of Borax and stir gently until the water looks gray. Some Borax will settle onto the bottom of the beaker. That’s fine. Pour the gray water into the colored glue, being careful not to let the Borax that is still powdered plop in. Stir the contents of the bowl and watch what happens!
4) After gently but thoroughly stirring the glue/borax mixture, pick up the bowl and using your fingers as a strainer, pour the liquid portion back into one of the beakers while leaving just the gooey blob in the bowl.
5) Pick up the gooey blob and squeeze & squish it (use the same motion as if you were making a snowball). In a few moments, the wetness will disappear, leaving you with a cool ball of colored slime! Stretch it! Roll it! Bounce it! It's awesome!
6) Store your slime in the plastic bag when not in use.

Try This!
Put a funnel into one of the beakers (or an empty jar, if you don’t have a beaker). Roll the slime into a nice, round ball and plop the ball into the funnel. Observe the funnel/slime setup every ten minutes or so. Does anything change?

What’s Going On?
Mixing with Borax causes the glue to polymerize, or convert into an amorphous (“shape changing") solid. Since this is a chemical change, the slime cannot be converted back into glue.

Caution: Do not leave slime on carpets, furniture or anything made of cloth, as it may stain such items. Only play with it on hard, smooth surfaces! Hot water will dissolve hardened slime.

©2010 Pow!Science!

Pow!Science Home Experiment: Electric Water (Adult Supervision Required)

Electric Water

Purpose: To observe the effects of electricity on water

Materials:

• Beaker, Jar or large glass
• 2 insulated wires(ideally one red & one black, but use what you've got) each equipped with an alligator clip at one end (or with an inch or two of uninsulated wire at each end)
• Water
• Salt
• Spoon
• 6V battery

CAUTION: THIS EXPERIMENT IS TO BE CONDUCTED ONLY WITH ADULT SUPERVISION!

Procedure:

PART ONE:

1) Fill the beaker with water until water is about an inch from the top (amount is not critical).

2) Clip the end of the black wire to the NEGATIVE ( - ) pole of the 6V battery.

3) Place the other end of the black wire into the water, so that the exposed end is fully submerged (bending the wire over the lip of your beaker/container will help keep the wire in there).

4) Clip the end of the red wire to the POSITIVE (+) pole of the 6V battery.

5) Carefully place the other end of the red wire into the water so that the exposed end is fully submerged.

What, if anything happened when you placed the second wire into the water? Nothing, right?

CAUTION: AT NO TIME SHOULD THE TWO ENDS OF THE WIRES IN THE WATER BE ALLOWED TO TOUCH. If they do, you're setting up a 'no load' or 'short' circuit and the wires and battery will begin to heat up.

PART TWO:

1) Disconnect the wires from the battery and remove them from the water.

2) Repeat steps 2) through 5) from Part One, EXCEPT THIS TIME, first add 5 or 6 spoonfuls of salt to the water and stir until it is completely dissolved.

3) Allow this setup to run for several minutes.

Did anything different happen this time (if it didn't, add more salt--amount needed will vary based on the size of your container)?

What’s Going On?

Despite its bad reputation from movies and TV, fresh water does not really conduct electricity well, as you observed from Part One of our experiment. When Salt is added to water, it dissolves into ions of Sodium and Chlorine, which conduct electricity very well indeed! The gross stuff that started to form in the water (starting out yellow and turning green if you watched long enough) is Sodium Hydroxide (also known as Caustic Soda or Lye), a major ingredient in soap!

Think and Talk About This!

Sodium Hydroxide is made of Sodium, Oxygen and Hydrogen. The Sodium comes from the salt. Where does the Oxygen and Hydrogen come from? (HINT: Think about the chemical formula for water).

Optional Method for enhancing the results:

To make the reaction a bit more noticeable, try wrapping a small strip of aluminum foil around the end of the black wire that goes into the water.