Author Topic: Great rainy day kitchen experiments  (Read 7161 times)

Great rainy day kitchen experiments
« on: 10 April, 2018, 02:17:37 pm »
Ok, it’s turning into Mumsnet here but here but hit me up with some negligible budget kitchen experiments with which to entertain youngsters. Here’s a few for starters:

Copper plating!
Put 15-20 2p’s in a jam jar and just cover with vinegar. Shake gently for a couple of minutes or so.
Remove shiny coins!
Retain vinegar in jar
Find a steel nail or similar object and thoroughly buff it up with some steel wool. Rinse in clean water and add to the jar of coppery vinegar and give it a quick swill round.
Put the kettle on and eat some cake.
Have some more cake.
Remove nail from jar and allow to dry.
Behold its very slightly coppery magnificence and attempt to explain to your non-plussed offspring.

Finding the hard boiled egg (NSFVegans)
Hard boil an egg and cool in water.
Dry the egg off and place alongside an uncooked egg.
Fetch the kids and ask them to tell which is hard boiled without breaking the shell.
Once they give up, grab an egg and whilst it is laying on its side spin it rapidly (like you would with a coin) on a flat surface. If it remains laying down it’s raw. The hard boiled one will shortly stand up and spin effectively on its point. I got one to spin for two minutes the other day.

Other suggestions:
Make a compass using a needle, magnet and bowl of water - floating the magnetised needle on the surface tension.

Make a small battery using coins, cardboard, aluminium foil and vinegar. (About 10 x clean 2p’s) should deliver around 1.5 V.

What are your favourite kitchen prestidigitations to impress the small folk? Apart from “Making cake disappear”.

Re: Great rainy day kitchen experiments
« Reply #1 on: 10 April, 2018, 07:03:42 pm »
Mix some custard powder or cornflour to make a non-Newtonian fluid - mix it slowly and it seems runny; mix it quick and it stiffens up.

Sit a speaker on it's back and cover it with cling-film. put some of the non-Newtonian fluid on it and turn up the music  - watch the monsters dance...

Slime - disposable container - mix: a tablespoonful of PVA glue; a drop of food colour (optional); a pinch of Bicarbonate of soda; mix and add eyedrops that contain boric acid/sodium tetraborate - it usually thickens and crosslinked polymerisation occurs. The result is a bit like silly-putty. Wash hands after handling the slime - Boric acid has health issues.

Probably best outside on a dry, still day: fluff up some fine wire/steel wool, then touch it breifly with a PP3 battery - The current will melt and ignite the wire wool and the fire/reaction should work it's way through the wool.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is...

Re: Great rainy day kitchen experiments
« Reply #2 on: 10 April, 2018, 08:40:09 pm »
"Deep sea diver" - put enough water in a glass eye-dropper*, put it in a clear PET bottle full of water and put the lid on. Squeeze the bottle to make the diver descend. Let go and it rises again.


* Not available with eye-drops nowadays but can be found with woo medicine like bach flower remedies/homeopathic water. Also with high-end vape liquid.
Quote from: tiermat
that's not science, it's semantics.

Re: Great rainy day kitchen experiments
« Reply #3 on: 10 April, 2018, 08:45:09 pm »
"Deep sea diver" - put enough water in a glass eye-dropper*, put it in a clear PET bottle full of water and put the lid on. Squeeze the bottle to make the diver descend. Let go and it rises again.


* Not available with eye-drops nowadays but can be found with woo medicine like bach flower remedies/homeopathic water. Also with high-end vape liquid.

Also works with some ketchup sachets.
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is...

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Great rainy day kitchen experiments
« Reply #4 on: 10 April, 2018, 11:21:48 pm »
Get 'Magnets, Bulbs and Batteries' or some other old Ladybird Junior Science book and enjoy the nostalgia while you follow the experiments...

Re: Great rainy day kitchen experiments
« Reply #5 on: 10 April, 2018, 11:28:47 pm »
You need this book.

Stuffed full of exactly the things you desire. Kept me riveted as a kid. I still have it.
Rust never sleeps

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Great rainy day kitchen experiments
« Reply #6 on: 10 April, 2018, 11:29:52 pm »
Get 'Magnets, Bulbs and Batteries' or some other old Ladybird Junior Science book and enjoy the nostalgia while you follow the experiments...

Being careful not to dismantle any NiMH cells with pliers.  The electrolyte can be pyrophoric.

rr

Re: Great rainy day kitchen experiments
« Reply #7 on: 10 April, 2018, 11:30:42 pm »
Wash red cabbage, drain and retain the water.
Watch it change from purple to red when you add a couple of drops of vinegar.

Put some oil and water in a jar, add a couple of drops of tomato ketchup and shake.
The red tomato colour will partition to the oil giving red oil and brown water.

Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk


hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Great rainy day kitchen experiments
« Reply #8 on: 10 April, 2018, 11:50:01 pm »
The anthocyanins in David's 'fruit teas' are very pH sensitive and will go any shade of red/purple/blue depending as will blackcurrant.

fuaran

  • rothair gasta
Re: Great rainy day kitchen experiments
« Reply #9 on: 10 April, 2018, 11:55:36 pm »
Bicarbonate of soda mixed with vinegar is a nice reaction. Add a bit of food colouring and washing up liquid, for a full volcano effect.
Or use it to inflate a balloon. Or make a bottle rocket (maybe not recommended indoors).

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Great rainy day kitchen experiments
« Reply #10 on: 11 April, 2018, 12:05:47 am »
All those experiments that are best done with Someone Else's Microwave...

Re: Great rainy day kitchen experiments
« Reply #11 on: 11 April, 2018, 12:08:07 am »
Potato batteries - push a clean bit of copper wire into a potato, and close to it a galvanised nail.

Do the same with 2 other potatoes, then connect the copper wires to the nails so you have them in series - put an LED between the last nail and the wire and it should light (if you get it the right way round).
If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is...