The Big Watermelon Experiment
Here is the footage from the Big Watermelon Experiment I performed at home! Thank you to everyone who shared their predictions with me via Google Classroom. Watch and see how many rubber bands it took to implode my watermelon!
It was an amazing experiment and so much fun to do - but like any experiment, it worked better the second time we did it as we got better at placing the rubber bands and secured the watermelon in the tin better so it didn't side around anywhere near as much as the first time. We also had ALL our recording devices on charge the second time around so that they didn't run out part way through filming like the first time, causing us to stop and start the experiment, which gave us an un-usable test number...!!! Second time for the data!
This year, our school is participating in 'The Big Watermelon Experiment' being conducted by Dr Rob Bell of Experimentary, a TV presenter and former CSIRO scientist. Lots of schools around Australia have signed up to participate in this experiment during Science Week!
ESSENTIALLY, we will be setting up a Science Experiment to test how many rubber bands it takes to make a watermelon IMPLODE!!! Rubber bands exert a force on the watermelon, which in turn has a hydrostatic force (water cannot compress and a watermelon is mainly made of water!) resisting against the rubber bands. One rubber band does not have that much force, but lots of rubber bands? I wonder how many rubber bands it will take to make my watermelon implode...?
We will need:
bag of size 64 rubber bands (need lots!)
one whole watermelon - (Woolworths has provided the school a $20 gift voucher to assist with the experiment)
solid container/base for watermelon to sit in during experiment to hold it still
measuring tape/scales
safety gear - safety glasses, lab coat etc
safe outdoor space to conduct experiment
camera to record experiment
I want every student to watch Dr Rob's videos (below) and then use the Google Form in your Google Classroom to predict how many rubber bands you think it will take to make my watermelon explode.... Some of the videos below are more geared towards helping teachers to set up the experiment, but as we cannot be together at school to do it, I have shared them all with you so you can understand what it is we are doing and testing.
I will then conduct the experiment at home and record it, uploading the videos for you to see during our class Google Meets in Science Week. I will also share with each class the results of the Google Form predictions and who made the most accurate rubber band prediction compared to my experiment. More information about this to follow....
These videos and the data collected, will then be submitted to the 'Big Watermelon Experiment' to add to Dr Rob's own data, and the data collected by all the other schools participating!
