Fun Experiments

There are many safe and fun experiments that you can do at home, and all are educational too. This page has a list of several fun experiments that you can do at home. Enjoy.

3D MAGNETIC AND ELECTRIC FIELD VIEWING BOTTLE

MATERIALS:

Magnet, Extra-fine steel wool, Plastic bottle full of baby oil with paper lable, Scissors

OPTIONAL MATERIALS:

Rubbing alcohol, Pan or shallow dish for the alcohol, White spray-paint

Links to magnetism sites

REMOVE THE LABLE

Make sure to buy baby oil with a removable paper lable, NOT the kind with a permanent, painted-on lable. Even better, try to find a bottle that has a lable only on one side.

If your bottle has lables on both sides, peel the lable from one side of the oil bottle. You can do this by picking at the paper lable with fingernails while running warm water on it. An easier way is to soak one side of the bottle in a shallow dish of rubbing alcohol for about 10 or 15 minutes. Peel off the gooey lable. Use a bit of alcohol and a paper towel to clean off the remaining glue. (It really is easier to find a bottle at the store that only has a lable on one side!)

MAKE THE STEEL FIBERS

Obtain extra fine steel wool. This is the kind that looks like a rolled-up wad of grey hair, NOT the kind that looks like a coppery coarse net used for scrubbing dishes. Any grade of wool will work, but extra-fine wool will settle more slowly, so you don't have to shake the bottle so often.

Find the end of the roll, and unroll the steel wool part way. We will use the scissors to make cuts ACROSS the wool. First trim the wool straight across to remove the frayed fibers, then repeatedly cut across the wool to make many very narrow strips, narrower than 1/8 inch. Try to cut them 1/16 inch if you can. This will give you thousands of short steel fibers. Cut up about a heaping teaspoon of fibers, or about one square inch of unrolled steel wool. Don't pack them down too much if you can help it. If you use a really tiny bottle of baby oil, use less than a teaspoon of fibers. If you use too large an amount of fibers, the fibers will clump and settle to the bottom of the bottle too fast. If you use too small an amount, the fibers will be hard to see.

MIX THE FIBERS INTO THE OIL

Gently wad up the fibers, drop the wad into the bottle of baby oil, cap it securely and shake the bottle. Shake until the wad of fibers is spread evenly throughout the oil. It helps to shake the bottle with a violent rotating wrist motion rather than just shaking straight up and down. Up-and-down shaking only works if there is a large bubble, rotation- shaking works good even with no bubble at all

If you have difficulty finding a magnet, try Radio Shack stores. They sell small disk magnets which can be stacked up to form bar magnets. A few dollars worth of their 1-inch "donut" disk magnets will be enough to make several big stacks. These can be used in other future science projects. You'll also wind up with a lifetime supply of refrigerator magnets! Don't forget to keep magnets away from credit cards, computer disks and video tapes, magnets can erase these. Keep them away from color TV and computer screens, since they can create permanent color blotches which can only be removed with a TV repair "degausser" coil or a cassette tape bulk eraser. (Hint: wave your magnets around an old Black&White TV screen, see what happens to the picture!)

While the fibers are still mixed into the oil, hold a magnet near one side of the bottle and watch the tiny fibers. They will all align themselves and reveal the three-dimensional magnetic field pattern. It helps to have the bottle in bright light so you can see the tiny fibers against the white lable on the back of the clear bottle. The fibers start to settle to the bottom in 10 or 15 seconds, so you'll have to shake the bottle every so often if you want to keep experimenting.

When the fibers settle out, shake them up again. If the fibers clump against the magnet, then you are holding the magnet too close to the bottle. Hold it about 1/2 inch or 1 inch away. Try holding the magnet sideways as shown above. Also try it up and down. Also try holding one magnet pole near each side of the bottle. Try an "N" pole with an "N" pole (the poles which repel each other.) Also try an "N" pole facing an "S" pole (the poles which attract.)

You can improve your bottle by removing all lables and painting one side of the bottle with white spray paint. This gives you a smooth white background against which to view the floating dark fibers.

Make a Telescope

Materials needed:

How to make it

First take the tube and cut it in two places at oposite ends, being sure not to cut it all the way through. (only cut the tube 3/4 through). Insert the lenses in the cuts. Presto there is your new telescope.

Make an Unpopable Balloon

Materials:

How to make it:

Blow the balloon up and tie it. Then take some of the tape and place it on one side of the balloon. You can then take the needle and puncture the balloon on the side with the tape. Wow the balloon did not pop. Be careful now and puncture the balloon on the side without the tape. POP.

Make a Record Player

Materials

What to do.

First take the top right corner of the paper and roll it around past the top left corner of the paper (as to make a cone). Then take the needle and push it through the paper at the tip of the cone. Then you are ready to play the record. Now have a friend hold the pencil, sharpened end up, and place the hole of the record on the pencil. Spin the record and place the end of the needle in one of the grooves of the record. Listen, can you hear it. (This work slightly better if you have a way to turn the record on a solid surface).