Oliver's notebook

Project #1 28/02/2024

Trying to change the color of sparklers

Disclaimer, the entire idea was Luka's

Audrey and I had taken inspiration from Oscar's sparkler and tried to change the color of it by adding the different flaming color compounds, in particular we had used copper chloride dihydrate  trying to change the color of the sparks to a greenish tinge. This had been a success/failure as we had managed to change the color of the flame while it was sparking but not the color of the actual sparks which was a bit of a disappointment...

Items:

2 crucibles

Any of the flaming colors metals

Methylated spirits

1x100ml beaker

Splints

Iron powder

Matches/bunsen burner

Tongs

Instructions

1. Pour about 20ml of methylated spirits into the 100ml beaker

2. Add about a quarter full crucible of iron and the other with whatever your designated color was.

3. Light the bunsen burner (you can skip this step if you're just using matches)

4. Dip the splint in the methylated spirits and then roll it in the two different metals

5. Light the splint on fire (remember to hold the end with tongs as to not burn yourself)

You should get a different colored flame but the sparks stay the same color (unfortunately) 

Photos still to come... 

Project #2 6/03/2024

Trying to build a marble accelerator to smash bricks, hopefully going to lead into a miniature particle accelerator but with a metal ball instead, here's the attempt (If I can get the video to actually blimmin load)

I had used for this project:

The two horseshoe magnets

A 1m ruler for the track

Something to hold the track up about 8cm

And a box filled with those spongy whiteboard erasers thingies (to make sure that the ball doesn't fly off and hit someone(Mrs. Quaid insists))

I had set up both of the magnets vertically and placed the wooden ruler in-between it and the box at the other end, right after the magnets, the supports go under the start of the track: here's a pretty bad drawing of it, but you sort of get the gist of it...

13/03/2024 - 27/03/2024 

Following people around doing various stuff including pocket rockets see: Audreys' Notebook  and doing hydrogen/helium balloons.

03/04/2024

Finally came up with an idea, Black fire!

In this experiment you're altering the photons given off by a sodium lamp as you set one up in a dark room with the light pointing onto a flame, you surround the flame with whiteboards so the light reflects onto the flame, and then you dip a tissue in salt water so when you put it in the flame, it colors it black and clear, this works for some reason because the lamp has sodium in it and so does the salt water on the tissue... I'll figure this out later....

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZNNDA2WUSU 

1/05/2024 

Just got back from holidays and am now working on the elephants toothpaste with Hector as we have a show for RPS on the 22nd. We have managed to get the elephants toothpaste to work but we still need it to go as Mrs Quaid phrased it 'woosh' and it keeps going out of the bottle and then just sliding down the sides instead of actually shooting up. Rosmary had suggested that we ended up using 

29/05/2024

Science buskers show was last week and it went well... ish. But atleast we got pizza afterwards.

Planning on continuing working on black fire and devolping this yet again

• H2O2 naturally breaks down into H2O and O2 (reaction: 2H2O2 ⇒ 2H2O + O2), but very slowly

• The catalyst, KI, causes this to happen much faster, releasing lots of steam, oxygen, and heat

• The oxygen bubbles are caught in the magic space liquid (dishwashing liquid) causing a big expansion

We ended up finding out that by adding heck tonnes more magic space liquid made the elephants toothpaste shoot up even farther than what we had originally.

26/06/24

We had our Science Buskers parents show where Hector and I did black fire, Heisenburgs uncertainty principle and photonic wavelenghts in RGB lights.

4/08/24

Back again on a Sunday evening trying to come up with ideas for our busk off against Remarks primary and Mr. Gilberts new school (We miss you), currently Luka, Fergus(?) and I have gotten the Briggs raucher reaction, big bertha but we do multiple holes and surround each one with different metals for different colors, and coloured ferrofluid. Our team name is 'suspicious colors' and we're trying to go by that theme of colors.

16/10/24 

Last day of Buskers for the year... 

Was told to write up a summary on my page by Amelia so here it is...

Black fire! Was successful in the way I managed to make it work, but couldn't get the entire flame black...

Marble accelerator (Rail gun) Didn't work as we didn't have enough magnets in growing size to make it go fast enough.

Busk off against RPS! Our team came second, Leo's came first, Audrey's RPS kids came third, and Rowan's RPS kids came last doing bubble experiments. 

On a side note about the busk off is that 2 of our 4 experiments didn't end up working as my Hydrogen Peroxide had decomposed before I could do my Briggs Raucher... Also Luka's development of the Bertha into the bottle rocket didn't work as we ran out of time at the end as the match failed to light like 8 times or something... And yet we still came 2nd, mainly for sportsmanship and lab safety. So basically even of your experiments don't work out the way they're supposed to, you can always talk about what should have happened with accurate science and a mimicking demonstration.

Plans for next year!: Fully black fire

                                              Starting an astronomy log

                                              Build an accurate representation of a black hole.

2025 Startup!

Audrey, Oliver & Jayden: Microscopes

This activity will be in the Biology Lab.

Our final idea for the microscope exhibition is that we'll have 3 micro-stations that all have slightly different functions. Each station is mainly based on exploration and new buskers are supervised but free experiment themselves. They are:

1. Prepared Compound Microscopes Micro-station: Selected prepared slides are on show with posters sharing a little bit about them.

• Items under prepared microscopes:

  • • Feathers

    • Human stomach cross-section

    • Paramecium

• Other notes:

2. Exploration Compound Microscopes Micro-station: New buskers can make their own slides (under supervision) to examine.

• Items under exploration compound microscopes:

  • • Feathers

    • Pond water

    • Leaves/flowers

• Other notes:

  • • Water must be used when preparing slides

3. Exploration Binoculars/Dissection Microscopes Micro-station: New buskers can interact with larger objects.

• Items under exploration binoculars/dissection microscopes:

  • • Feathers

    • Leaves/flowers

General Equipment:

• 4 + Compound Microscopes

• Box of prepared slides

• Posters about prepared slides

• Used slides + slide covers

• Water (in beakers, none in Bio Lab)

• 4 + pipettes (1x paramecium, 1x pond water, 1x water, 1 spare)

• 2 + wooden/chopping board

• 2 + scalpel or sharp knife

• 2 + Binoculars/Dissection Microscopes

• 2 + Lights

• Scissors

Pack up equipment:

• Trays (to put slides in)

• Paper towels (for slides)

Items under observation (that need collection):

• Feathers (chicken, mallard etc.)

• Flowers (lavender etc.)

• Leaves (apple/pear leaves, etc)

• Pond Water

Other notes:

• Liquid (we'll use water) must be used under the coverslip

• Use a mix of compound microscopes and dissection microscopes (binoculars) 

• This little animal we found in the paramecium culture really doesn't like the heat generated by the light on the microscopes (and I've already forgotten it's name, although I'm pretty sure I found the exoskeleton of a similar looking creature (but bigger) at Duck Pond Nu.3)

Came up with a new idea, displaying how light takes every single possible path....

Testing on Wednesday

Paper plane comp today due to lack of chem teachers 3/12/25

We made a standard plane, with a straw down the center, with rolled up tape (jet boosters) on the wings, we lost by a mile, in practice I had gotten it from the office door to the door to the art area top corner, but we did it above the science lab so it hit the roof😭, thought we were going to do it in the foyer.

2/4/25

Going to make copper crystals next week, copper cathode on top, copper anode on bottom, read doc for more info.

Photo of my setup below, connected 5 lightbulbs to lower volatge of charge running through the copper sulfate.

4/30/25

Prep for the parents evening, with Hector and Jaydn.

We are doing the wheel gyroscope for the evening, was trying to figure out angular momentum with Mr O'neill.

Angular momentum has direction, there is a rule called the right hand rule, where if you're holding a bike wheel by both sides, if you hold it with your palm on top, and fingers curled underneath, then if the wheel is rotating away from you, aka the way that your fingers are, the it will move in the direction of your right hand thumb, this is also the same for the other direction, if you hold it underneath, fingers pointed back to yourself, then the wheel will move to the  left, or also known as they way that your right hand thumb is pointing