Scroll
down for some serious...
Snarky Lab Work!
It's
time to hit the lab! Here are some Snarky science facts and lab
experiments... Even some you can try at home!
Scroll down
to check out all the experiments,
Or click on a link to visit your favorites!
Slime
Wad
Windbag
Singing
Cup
Silly
Putty
Dancing
Penny
Exploding
Soda Bottle
Blob
Explosion
Milk-tacular
Splash of Color
Hand
Boilers
Tornado
in a Bottle
Instant
Snow
Hypothesizer
Worms
FOURmulator
Fog Rings
Try
this one at home!
Make your own wad of slime!
Ahhh... the magic of polymers.
So many uses! So helpful, these lovely long chains of molecules!
And it has been said that polymers are at their most delightful
when they're used to create great blubbery boogery globs of slime.
Got a hankering for just such a blob? Well, you can either wait
until you get a heinous sinus infection, or you can fire up your
Lab and follow the simple directions below...
You'll need:
Measuring cup
2 plastic cups
1 spoon
Ziplock bag
White craft glue
Borax powdered laundry booster-- Careful, Borax is an EYE IRRITANT!
Water
Food dye
First, create your SIR (Slime
Instigation Reagent) by filling one plastic cup with water, then
adding Borax powder, one spoonful at a time and stirring well. Keep
adding spoons of Borax, stirring after each one, until your SIR
achieves the lofty status of SUPERSATURATION. You'll know it's time
to stop when the Borax stops starts to form an undissolved pile
at the bottom of the cup, indicating that the water can't absorb
any more. Sort of like Professor Cheddar after her 19th piece of
extra-sharp cheese.
Now set aside your SIR,
and turn your attention to the serious decision at hand: WHAT COLOR
IS YOUR SLIME GOING TO BE? (Snarky Science Tip: We at the Snark
Lab favor green, not only because Dr. 4 gets pouty if things aren't
green, but because green slime looks more like snot.) Choose your
preferred color(s) of food dye carefully, then add a few drops to
your second cup. Now add 1/4 cup water and 1/4 cup glue to your
cup and stir well. You should have 1/2 cup of colored Slime Base.
You are now ready to build
your slime. In the ziplock bag, combine 1/2 cup of SIR and your
1/2 cup of Slime Base. Seal the bag and mush it around in your hands.
You'll notice the consistency of the mixture quickly goes from watery
to lumpy to full-force SLIMEY, at which point you know you've had
a successful slime making experience. You can now remove your slime
and play with it in your hands and startle people by pretending
to find it in unlikely and gross places. (Snarky Science Tip: Just
don't follow Dr. 4's bad example-- She put her slime in her hair
one time and learned the hard way that slime doesn't play well with
hair... or furniture, rugs, carseats, window treatments, Mom's purse,
and clothing, either, for that matter.)
How it works...
Borax is actually a mineral made up of sodium, boron, and oxygen,
which crystallizes with water molecules. In this experiment, the
Borax acts as a connector, cross-linking the polyvinyl acetate (polymer)
molecules in the glue. As the molecules form longer chains, they
create slime!
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And you
thought the Snark-a-Snoops were the world's biggest windbags!?
Ever been at a Snarky show
wherein Dr. 4 and Professor Cheddar hauled some unsuspecting audience
member up onto the stage, bestowed on that poor person a Snarky
Science Name (like Herr Half-Life or Madame Isometrix) and challenged
him or her to fill up a giant 8-foot windbag in four breaths? And
then after that person tried valiantly but was unable to do it in
less than 20-50 breaths, you heard Dr. 4 smugly proclaim that she
can fill up the windbag in ONE BREATH?
Well, in this particular
case, Dr. 4 has one advantage over the hapless audience member:
she knows how to make Bernoulli's Principle work for her to fill
up the windbag. When she blows up the bag, she doesn't put her mouth
right up against the plastic, she stays about 10 inches away. The
stream of moving air from her lungs creates around it an area of
low atmospheric pressure. As she blows, the higher pressure air
from the atmosphere rushes in to fill up this area of low pressure,
and all this air gets pulled into the windbag right along with the
air Dr. 4 is exhaling. This way, she can use air from the room to
help her fill up the 8-ft bag in one single breath!
In fact, fire fighters use
this same principle to force smoke out of a building. They flush
the smoke out of a building by pumping air in with big fans. Turns
out, instead of putting the fans right up against a door or window,
they can force more air into a building by leaving a small amount
of space between their fans and the building opening.
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Try
this one at home!
How do the Snark-a-Snoops make
a cup sing?
The Singing Cup is one of
our favorite science party tricks. As a matter of fact, Professor
Cheddar once invited four hundred people over to the Snark Lab and
formed a Snarky Singing Cup Chorus. Dr. 4 even wrote a Snarky Cantata
in G Minor ("Where Art My Paper Towels?") for the occasion,
but it was widely misunderstood and panned by the critics.
But no matter! Now you can
form your own Singing Cup Ensemble!
You'll need...
A large plastic cup (the bigger, the better!)
A piece of string
A grown-up with a sharp object
A cup of water
Ask your grown-up to use
the sharp object to poke a small hole in the bottom of your plastic
cup. Now feed the string through the hole and tie knots at both
ends so it can't slip through the hole. Dip the string in the cup
of water. Now pinch the string lightly between your thumb and first
finger, and slide down the string away from the cup. Your cup is
singing! Or squawking, may be more like it. You'll notice that the
amount of pressure you put on the string and the speed at which
you slide will change the sound. You can also jerk your fingers
along it to make your cup sound like a turkey or a chicken. Can
you make your cup bark like a seal? Or a dog? Bray like a donkey?
Roar like a T-Rex? Sing the alto part of Dr. 4's "Where Art
My Paper Towels?" Cantata in G Minor?
Here's how it works...
Sound is made by vibrations. When something vibrates, it moves the
air molecules around it, causing them to vibrate, too. Those vibrating
molecules, in turn, bump into other molecules, which in turn vibrate
and bump into still more molecules. When the vibrating molecules
bump into your ear drum, you hear it as sound. Fast vibrations make
a high sound; slow vibrations make a low sound. When you slide your
fingers along the wet string, the friction causes vibrations that
would normally be pretty quiet. But the cup acts like a bullhorn
to amplify the sound so you can hear it loud and clear. Stringed
instruments (like violins) and even your own vocal chords work in
a very similar manner!
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Try
this one at home!
Homemade Snarky Silly Putty!
Ever wonder what Ethan the
Robot would look like if he were two inches high and made of orange
silly putty? Now you can find out!
You'll need:
1 plastic cup
Craft glue
Liquid starch (found in the laundry aisle of your grocery store)
Food dye
Never has a science formula
been so simple, yet so much fun! Just mix 2 parts glue with 1 part
liquid starch in your cup, add a few drops of your favorite color,
and VOILA! You'll have to knead it and mash it and work it with
your hands for a while to get just the right consistency. (Snarky
Science Tip: Is your putty too runny? Add glue! Too sticky? Add
starch! And keep your putty FAR AWAY from the couch and your bed
and Dad's leather jacket! When you let it sit for a while, it will
spread into a putty pancake!)
Here's how it works...
Your silly putty is classified as a viscoelastic substance. Whoa!
This means that it exhibits both viscous (sticky/resistant to flow)
AND elastic properties. Hmmm. Not altogether unlike Dr. 4 being
both absented-minded AND a brilliant science pioneer. This experiment
is similar to the slime experiment, in that the starch cross-links
the molecules in the glue, attaching them to one another. So instead
of flowing like the molecules in glue alone, the putty molecules
get stretchy and maintain their connections, allowing the putty
to snap back to its original shape. (Snarky Science Tip: try building
that two-inch replica of Ethan the Robot and watch what happens
when you leave him alone... a few minutes later you'll find a putty
puddle!)
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Try
this one at home!
How do the Snark-a-Snoops make
a penny dance?
Like most puppies, pennies
will do tricks for you if you train them well and know just how
to ask them. Here's how you can get a penny to dance for you! Start
out by placing the penny inside a balloon. Make sure you get the
penny all the way inside the balloon so there's no danger of sucking
it in later! (Science tip: clear or light-colored balloons will
make it easier to see your dancing penny!) Now you (or a grown-up)
can blow the balloon up very carefully, leaving the penny inside.
Don't over inflate the balloon, or the trick isn't as effective.
Now tie the balloon shut. Hold the inflated balloon like a blowling
ball, with the knot in the palm of one hand, your fingers cupped
around one end of the balloon, the other end held down toward the
floor. Swirl the balloon around and around in a circular motion,
parallel to the floor, asking your penny very sweetly to please
whirl and twirl for you. Use your wrist! Build up some speed! You'll
feel the penny begin to spin inside the balloon. Now STOP the balloon
very suddenly with your free hand (but don't squeeze!). The penny
will keep spinning long after the balloon stops! (Science tip: If
you can do your balloon-swirling motion hidden from view, you can
really impress someone by bringing your dancing penny out AFTER
stopping the balloon! They'll never know how you got it to do that!)
How it works...
The centripetal force created by the swirling motion of the balloon
starts the penny moving. The penny spins around in an outward circular
motion just the way Mom's purse would spin if you held onto the
straps and turned around and around. When the balloon stops, the
penny's inertia keeps it keep going for a while, epecially since
the edge of a penny against the inside the balloon creates very
little friction (which causes a moving object to slow down-- just
like a car on a bumpy road).
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Try
this one at home!
Can
I make a soda bottle explode just like the Snark-a-Snoops do?!
You, too, can explode a
bottle of soda pop! (But only if your grown-up says it's ok.)
You'll
need:
A 2-liter bottle of soda (we prefer diet soda so it doesn't get
sticky or attract bugs)
A roll of Mentos candy (any flavor)
A spacious spot somewhere far away from anything you don't want
to get wet or dirty.
This
is the simplest and most spectacular science experiment we know.
Start by carefully selecting your spot, opening your soda bottle
and peeling the wrapper off the end of your Mentos. Position the
open end of the Mentos above the open soda bottle. NOW SQUEEZE!
Shoot the Mentos in a single rapid-fire shot into the soda... and
either run for the hills, or get ready to get SOAKED, because in
a fraction of a second, you'll have an 18-foot soda geyser raining
down on you!
Here's
how it works...
Believe it or not, this demonstration represents a PHYSICAL reaction,
not a CHEMICAL one. Soda is filled with compressed air (carbon dioxide)
that starts to escape the instant you open the bottle. This air
normally escapes quite slowly, in the form of small bubbles. But
if you break the surface tension of the liquid by dropping in a
roll of Mentos, the air can escape much faster. The Mentos in this
experiment also provide nucleation sites, or surface areas for the
carbon dioxide bubbles to form. When lots of bubbles form very fast,
the result is a fizzy soda fountain!
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How
do the Snark-a-Snoops make a Blob Explosion in a test tube?
The Blob Explosion is a
dramatic example of how oil and water don't mix. Water is actually
heavier than oil, so it sinks to the bottom of the test tube while
the oil, which is less dense, floats on top. When a fizzy color
tablet is added, it sinks to the bottom and mixes only with the
water. Now you have a "blob" of colored water at the bottom
with clear oil on top. Once the fizzy tablet starts fizzing, the
bubbles that are created rise through the oil to the surface, where
the air is released, and the colored water sinks back to the bottom
again. The result is that the rising and falling colored water bubbles
moving up and down through the oil create the illusion of an explosion.
Try mixing colored water with oil at home and watch how they interact!
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Try
this one at home!
A Milk-tacular
Splash of Color!
You'll need:
One dinner plate
Whole milk
Liquid food color (the more colors, the better!)
Q-tips
Concentrated liquid dish soap (Dawn works great)
Start by pouring enough
milk onto the dinner plate to cover the bottom of the plate. Next,
add four or five drops of food coloring to the milk, being careful
not to stir or mix the colors into the milk. (Snarky Science Tip:
use multiple colors and keep the drops separate from each other,
but not too far apart!) Now, carefully dip a Q-tip into the center
of the milk and watch what happens. See anything amazing yet? How
about this: Add a drop Dawn concentrated dish soap to the end of
the Q-tip, and dip it in the milk again. WOW! This time you'll get
a pretty fancy show!
Here's how it works....
Milk is made up up lots of different types of molecules, including
vitamins, proteins, sugars, and fats. Proteins and fats are particularly
sensitive to changes around them. When you add the Dawn to the milk,
the chemical bonds that hold the proteins and fats are altered,
and it's a free for all! The molecules bend, twist, roll and bounce
off each other in all different directions, causing currents in
the milk! Without food dye, you wouldn't be able to see these currents,
but the food dye shows the swirling and circulating of the molecules.
You end up with a colorful, dazzling display of the magic of science
at work!
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Are
Professor Cheddar and Dr. 4's hands really hot enough to boil water?
When Dr. 4 and Professor
Cheddar manage to make their hand boilers boil and bubble, it's
not just because they are the world's HOTTEST scientists... It's
also because they understand the relationship between temperature
and pressure. In a closed container, the hotter something gets,
the more pressure is created. When you wrap your hand around the
bottom bulb of a hand boiler, the heat from your hand creates an
increase in temperature and therefore an increase in pressure, which
causes the liquid (colored alcohol) to move up the tube. When enough
liquid transfers from the bottom bulb, alcohol vaper is forced up
to the surface, which causes the liquid at the top to appear to
"boil." Did you know this experiment works on exactly
the same principle as the old-fashioned Love Meter at the county
fair or the Five 'n Dime?! Let the hand boilers be the judge: HOW
HOT ARE YOU?
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How
does Dr. 4's Tornado In A Bottle work?
Dr. 4 loves her tornado
in a bottle, whose name happens to be Sister. Sister consists of
two bottles that are connected with a donut-shaped piece of plastic
which Dr. 4 calls her Snarky Sister Twister Enlister (SSTE). One
bottle is filled about two-thirds full of water... often green water
because, as we all know, Dr. 4 loves green. Sometimes, Sister can
be found wearing glitter or other fancy dress-up accouterments.
When the two bottles are connected by the SSTE, no air or water
can escape. It may look like one bottle is empty, but it's actually
full.... full of AIR, that is. So once the bottles are attached,
with the water bottle upside down over the second bottle, the water
has nowhere to go unless the air from the lower bottle moves to
make space for it. It looks like Dr. 4 is defying gravity, but really,
it's just science at work! The trick is to get the water out of
the way of the SSTE's hole so that air can come up and water can
flow down. Swishing the bottles as if she were stirring something
on the stove, Dr. 4 forms a vortex, which occurs when the air comes
up from the lower bottle through the center of the SSTE and water
spirals into the lower bottle.
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How
do the Snark-a-Snoops make instant snow in their shows?
The snow that Dr. 4 and
Professor Cheddar make in their lab is actually made not from freezing
water, like most snow is, but from adding water to a chemical called
sodium polyacrylate, which is a type of polymer. The word "polymer"
simply means a long chain of chemicals ("poly" means "many"
and "mer" is a unit or molecule). You can actually find
similar polymers hidden in the lining of a diaper. The polymer is
what absorbs the moisture in a diaper, turning it into gel. Ever
notice how heavy a diaper is when it's full? Well, in the process
of developing the perfect peepee-absorber, scientists accidentally
created a fluffy version of the diaper polymer. It didn't work so
well in diapers, but made for really cool instant snow! When water
is added, the polymer soaks it up through the process of osmosis
(water molecules pass through a barrier from one side to the other).
In other words, when water comes in contact with the polymer, it
moves from outside the polymer to inside, causing the molecules
to swell, like tiny water balloons! The polymer chains have an elastic
quality, but they can stretch only so far and hold only so much
water. Otherwise, add water to just one scoop of snow powder, and
the Snark Lab would be buried in a giant snow drift!
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Try this one at home!
Make your own
Hypothesizer!
Just like the one in the
Snarky Movie!
You'll need:
Baking soda
Blue food coloring
Yellow food coloring
Concentrated dish soap
White vinegar
A large glass or clear plastic beaker or container
2 measuring cups
Use the food dye to dye
a cup of vinegar blue (in one measuring cup) and another cup of
vinegar yellow (in the other measuring cup). Add a few drops of
dish soap to each and swish gently. These will serve as your Hypothesizer
Activator Fluids. Set them aside, but not too far away.
Next, fill the bottom of
your Hypothesizer container with baking soda (an inch or two deep).
This will now serve as your Hypothesizer Vessel.
At this point you are ready to activate your Hypothesizer. Best
to do your work in a sink or over paper towels. Carefully pour the
blue and yellow Hypotesizer Activator Fluids into the Hypothesizer
Vessel and monitor the reaction. When the effervescing of the Hypothesizer
is optimum, add your clue to to the mixture and record your findings.
Here's how it works....
Vinegar is an acid (acetic acid, to be exact) and baking soda is
a base. When you combine the two, you get gas (carbon dioxide) which
is released in the form of bubbles! Lots of them! (The dish soap
adds some bubbles and helps the bubbles stick arond a little longer
for dramatic effect.) The other two bi-products are sodium acetate
(which is a form of salt, but not the kind on your table) and water.
So, when cleaning out your Hypothesizer (as, of course, you will
do) you will notice a white chalky residue and water is left behind!
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How
do Dr. 4 and Professor Cheddar make worms in the Snark Lab?
If you read above about
the special polymer that can create Instant Snow, than you know
that a polymer is a long chain of molecules. There are many kinds
of polymers, and we use them to make slime, silly putty, even diapers.
In this case we want ooey gooey worms instead of fluffy snow, boogery
slime, or bouncy silly putty. So we use a polymer called sodium
alginate, which is a polysaccharide, formed by stringing together
hundreds of glucose (sugar) molecules. Alginate is a common thickener
in foods such as ice cream and fruit pies. (Now that you know this
chemistry secret, take a look a food labels next time you're in
the grocery store to discover which foods contain sodium alginate!)
Alginate compounds are also used for dental impressions and wound
dressings, to name a few other usages. The sodium alginate immediately
changes from a liquid to a solid the moment it touches the Worm
Activator solution. This is because the Worm Activator solution
contains calcium, which serves to link the long polymer chains together.
Scientists call this "cross-linking." Certain ions in
the calcium replace specific ions in the alginate, resulting in
a link that forms a polymer strand, or an instant "worm!"
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How
does Dr. 4's FOURmulator make fog rings?
You may have noticed that
when Dr. 4 is taking readings with the FOURmulator, it emits fog
rings. How does that happen? The FOURmulator creates a "Coanda
Effect," which means that the air around the edge of the FOURmulator's
opening is slowed down, and the air in the center moves faster.
This creates low-pressure in the the middle, and a ring forms, which
is called a "Toroidal Vortex." "Toroidal" means
"doughnut shaped" and "vortex" means "whirling
or circular motion of a gas or liquid" (like a tornado, or
that whirlpool that forms when you let the water out of the bathtub!).
Once the rings are formed, they move forward out of the FOURmulator
when Dr. 4 hits the plunger and produces a fast-moving pulse of
air (like a wave in the ocean). The effects of the Bernoulli Principle
(see the wingbag experiment) keeps the low-pressure at the center
of the Toroidal Vortex so that the rings hold their shape as they
float out of the FOURmulator!
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Coming soon...
How do the Snark-a-Snoops
make sticks talk?!? How do they make raisins dance or Mona glow
in the dark?!?
We'll have answers to these and other burning science questions
right here, so come back soon!
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Coming
soon.... The new and improved Snarky Guest Book!
You'll be able
to leave a message for the Snark-a-Snoops... or for Snarkabing himself!
Visit
again!
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Snarky Outreach
It's a Snarky, Snarky
World Out There!
Want to help a child this holiday season?
Donate Snarky Gear to children
who will be spending the holidays in the hospital this year! The
Snark-a-Snoops will be visiting local hospitals this holiday season
to perform for kids and spread a little holiday cheer. We will be
donating CDs, t-shirts and DVDs to kids and hospitals. If you'd
like to make a donation of some Snarky Gear, contact us directly
at 407.619.4746 or snarkasnoops@tmail.com . We will be matching
each donated item. Thanks for your help!
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The Snarky Club
Join the Snarky Club and be FOURwarned of all new
developments in the world of the Snarks!
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