Related Activity

An experiment to replicate at home:

For our experiment we decided to focus on the stability of floating bodies.

Items needed:

• • A big container, such as a bathtub.

  • Three identical water bottles.

  • Small batteries.

  • Ketchup 1480 kg per cubic meter.

  • Corn syrup 1380 kg per cubic meter.

  • Mayonnaise 910 kg per cubic meter.

  • Ruler to measure the different heights of the cylinders.

  • Scale for measuring the weight of each cylinder.

Procedure:

The experiment procedure focuses on the stability of floating bodies. The first experiment you could enact by changing the centre of gravity of the bottles, by adding diffrent ammounts of stabilisers on the bottom. The second one could be keeping the centre of gravity constant, but changing the density of the liquids in each object. These are the steps you need to take in order to recreate the second scenario.

First experimet:

1.  Weigh the small cylinder.

2.  Place the small empty cylinder into the large container containing fresh water and observe that it is unstable.

3. Place a small amount of material ( like sand ) into the cylinder (to give it some ballast) and note if it is still unstable. Estimate how much of the cylinder is submerged, and then measure the height of material.

4. Continue adding material until the cylinder remains stable. Measure how much of cylinder is submerged. 

5. Final step is to remove the cylinder and measure its weight, as well ast he height of material and note it down. 

Second experiment:

• • 1. Use the same filled up container.

• 1. Cut the three bottles a third of the way down (they should represent small scale versions of ships).

  2. Next step would be adding some small stabilisers to the bottom of the containers, like 1.5 volt batteries, or adding some glue using a glue gun (this is in order to stabilise the objects, by securing their centre of gravity, thus making sure they don't tip over) .

     1. After securing the centre of gravity the final step would be to fill the rest of the ships with different fluids, which have different densities.

     2. Finals step would be to observe the experiment and take notes, as well as pat yourself on the back for creating such a cool experiment.