What Are Some Fun Homemade Experiments?

[HornedWildebeas]

I've been searching the web for a while and have come across a few but wanted to check here to see what you guys would recommend. I like burning things and blowing stuff up. Obviously not lethal, but a nice bang would be cool. One example would be green fire. I did that for a Chem project last year. Anything along those lines would be great. Any ideas?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

What sort of equipment and chemicals do you have easy access to? Just whatever you can find in your house?

[big314mp]

Also, how much chemistry have you had, or can you find some knowledgeable person to supervise you?

 

My chem and physics teachers always kept an eye on me as I made stuff go bang

[Gilded]

Green fire: Mix some boric acid with ethanol. This might be what you did for the project, but if it isn't you might want to try it. It's beautiful.

A very bright flash: Mix 1.4g of potassium perchlorate with 0.6g of aluminum powder and light it with a fuse or a burning stick. As with burning magnesium it's not recommended to stare at it directly.

Melt steel: Thermite. About 75% Fe2O3 and 25% aluminum by weight. While thermite isn't as destructive as it's often portrayed to be, one kilogram can easily melt a steel pan or similar sized object as evidenced

 

As for other stuff it would definitely help if you'd list some equipment and materials you have access to.

[HornedWildebeas]

Well I'm in AP Chem so I have a pretty good understanding of what's happening. As for materials, mainly your basic household products or cheap materials you can buy at Wal mart or the likes.

 

gilded- yeah that's the green fire I made. It was pretty cool.

[General Davis]

a fun experiment i did at school is drop a mentos candy (mint flavor)

into a diet coke. its fun but i recomend doing outside and when you drop the mentos in i would stand back.

[big314mp]

KClO4 + heat + sugar is also really cool. It should be done in a fume hood.

 

H2SO4 + sugar is also pretty cool.

[YT2095]

KClO4 + heat + sugar is also really cool. It should be done in a fume hood.

 

and not more than a couple of grams at a time.

[SkepticLance]

Almost any mix of a powerful oxidiser plus an organic material will result in fire, and often bangs. These may be dangerous. I know of a guy who got thrown off a mezzanine floor and dropped one floor to a concrete base. Ended in hospital with broken bones and chemical burns. All from a strong oxidiser added to an organic solution. So I won't tell you what he did!

 

Having said that, here is my favourite recipe for teenage mischief. Make a fuse by dipping cotton thread into Potassium nitrate solution, and letting it air dry. Do the same with a piece of non synthetic string.

 

Make hydrogen gas. Caustic soda solution in a beer bottle, with a piece of aluminum foil added, will do it. Care with adding caustic to water, since it heats up a lot. You may want to immerse the receiving vessel in cold water to keep it cool. Not too cool, or the hydrogen emission will be too slow.

 

Seal the neck of a balloon over the mouth of the beer bottle, with one end of the cotton fuse inside the balloon. The hydrogen will slowly fill it up, and expand the balloon. When big enough, tie off the balloon with your pre-prepared string, and secure the fuse . The fuse should touch the string before going into the balloon. You should be able to let it out to the end of the cotton fuse, and it rises.

 

At night, light the end of the fuse and let the balloon go. Mischief!

[big314mp]

That sounds really cool. I'll try that sometime!

[saturn5]

how about some experiments using everyday household items, for a science newbie like myself, some experiments like newton's spinning water bucket.

i would like to try and understand certain aspects of physics by observing.

i'd really like to start getting into physics .

 

i would appreciate that the experiments come with check list for what should be observed and calculated .....also i want to keep it light , no kaboom tests

im still in the trying to understand phase.

 

any knowledge that can be provided would be great . THX

[iNow]

Check out this recent post on Swansont's blog.

 

http://blogs.scienceforums.net/swansont/archives/898

[hydraliskdragon]

Here's simple way to green flame.

 

1)Find a good power source around 5 to 19 volts DC at 50 to 100 mAh.

 

2) Set up a brine solution.

 

3) Obtain Copper and Steel. More surface area the better.

 

4) Attach the one electrodes from the power supply to copper and another to the steel. Make sure that the negetive is attached to steel.

 

5) Dunk the copper and steel in brine.

 

6) Go outside and turn on the power. This is because of Cl gas created.

 

7) Obtain green stuff and dry.

 

8) Burn it to create green flame

[AtomSplitter]

if attempting the mentos one, diet coke produces a greater effect

[Mr Skeptic]

To turn a flame green, you just need to stick regular copper wire in it.

[Gilded]

To turn a flame green, you just need to stick regular copper wire in it.

 

That isn't nearly as fun as burning copper compounds in methanol/ethanol though.

[Theophrastus]

In regards to wondrous flaming experiments, I think I have your fix. The simplest I know is the fire worm, where you mix baking soda, and sugar, then lightly sprinkle the mixture with some ethanol, leaving it to dry. You can then contain the reaction using a bucket of sand, poking small holes where you insert your solution, or even doe it right on a petri dish. You then ignite the the mixture, due to the heat, the baking soda (NaHCO3) decomposes into sodium carbonate, carbon dioxide and water.

 

2NaHCO3 > Na2CO3 + CO2 +H2O

 

The heat will and pressure of the sugar will mold it, and your mixture will curve upwards, and as the reaction stops, a dark worm remains (rather small though) You can always blow up, a couple of hydrogen balloons, by using a match on a (preferably long) stick. You can quickly produce a reasonable quantity of hydrogen gas, by reacting aluminum foil with HCl or NaOH. You can also heat magnesium (be careful, as this will produce some pretty white sparks), then drop it into water. The equations for both reactions, are found below:

 

2Al + 6HCl > 2AlCl3 + 3H2

 

Mg + 2H2O > 2MgO + 2H2

 

You can also use various chemicals to colour flame; copper compounds such as copper sulfate and chloride, generally burn with a bright greenish blue, or blue flame, strontium and calcium salts are red, etc. There's plenty of choice! I personally don't have so great a fondness for fires and bangs, but I do enjoy complexes, what with their brilliant colours. These can be synthesised by mixing ammonia (a Lewis base) with copper compounds like copper hydroxide and sulfate. Copper hydroxide can be easily attained by electrolysis. This can then be heated to achieve copper oxide which you can either react with hydrochloric or sulfuric acid, to produce copper chlorides and sulfates. The same can be done with most hydroxides.

 

CuO + 2HCl > CuCl2 + H2O

 

CuO + H2SO4 > H2O + CuSO4

 

Have a blast!

 

,Theophrastus

[salter]

If you live in the USA, I would reccomend checking out unitednuclear.com. They sell plenty of useful chemicals and explain what each one is used for (including the color it adds to pyrotechnics) and even if you can't actually order them because of parents or whatnot, its educational and you will learn a lot about fun chemical things to do.

 

I am personally a fan of KNO3/S/Al flash powder, 5:3:2. It burns REALLY brightly, about equal to magnesium, and is incredibly hot too. its fun just to see what it will burn through. For added heat and brightness, I add magnesium turnings that i get for $4 USD/50g off of ebay. They also make mean M-80's, but don't tell anyone I said that .

 

The hydrogen idea is really cool I've gotta try that