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easy experiment

Ever wonder if a bubble can be something other than a round sphere? Challenge geometry and create your own mind-bending, cube-shaped bubble!

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Gather your materials.&nbsp;

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Slip 12 pipe cleaners into 12 straws.&nbsp;

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Twist the ends of the pipe cleaners together to build straws into a cube shape.&nbsp;

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Tuck away the excess pipe cleaners into the straws.

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Fully dip the cube into a container of bubble solution.

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Carefully pull out the cube and gently wiggle it until the soap planes meet and form a square in the middle.

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Dip the end of another straw into the bubble solution.

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Slowly blow a bubble into the center of the cube using the straw.

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Bubble Cube.

Bubbles are usually spherical because water molecules hold tight to each other through a force called surface tension, naturally pulling the bubble film into the shape with the smallest possible surface area for its volume! But when you submerge a 3D frame, the soap film attaches to all twelve edges of the cube. The surface tension pulls the film inward from every side, meeting in the middle to form a flat square interface. Blowing air into that central spot creates a hollow, straight-sided bubble supported by the surrounding soap walls!

straws

pipe cleaners

large bowl or bucket

bubble solution

Bubble Cube

engineering

Fourth of July

flight

rocket

These mini rockets are so easy to make and so fun to set off, you’ll want to launch them again and again. Parent supervision and eye protection are highly recommended for this project! Never point your pop-top rocket at yourself or anyone else. This project must be done outside.

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If your container has an attached lid, cut it off. This will help your rocket fly straighter.

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Decorate your rocket however you’d like! We added a nose cone, fins, and some shiny mylar flames.

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Fill your container one third of the way full with water. Then grab all of your materials and your safety glasses and head outside. You’re almost ready to launch! 

Important: put your safety glasses on now! This step happens fast, so you need to be ready before you start. Make sure you’re working on a smooth outdoor surface, away from any obstructions.

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Break off a small piece of the fizzy tablet and drop it into the water. Immediately snap the lid of your rocket container back on, then place it lid-side down on a smooth surface. Step back and watch it fly!

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You can launch your rocket again and again, so feel free to experiment! After our first launch, we were able to put the lid back on and get a second launch without adding more fizzy tablet. Or, when it runs out of fizz, just add more water and fizzy tablet and try again. Try using a larger or smaller piece of fizzy tablet and see what happens.

What’s going on?
To see what’s going on here, try dropping a fizzy tablet into clear glass of water and watch what happens. You’ll see the tablet immediately create lots of tiny bubbles that rise up to the surface of the water. Those bubbles are carbon dioxide gas, created by a chemical reaction between two ingredients in the tablets.&nbsp;
When that reaction takes place inside your pop-top rocket, the carbon dioxide gas has nowhere to go. More and more builds up inside your rocket until… pop! Eventually the pressure from the gas becomes too great and the pop-top seal lets go, sending your rocket shooting up into the air.

pop-top lid container

fizzy tablets (like Alka-Seltzer antacid)

water

Paper

Tape

Scissors

safety goggles

Pop-Top Rockets

science experiment

density

experiment

Turn a pair of bottles and foam pearls into a gravity-defying spectacle. Get your kids excited about the science of density while they watch time flow backwards!

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Gather your materials.

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Use the funnel to fill one bottle with foam pearls.

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Fill the other bottle with water.

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Cover the top of the water bottle with anything thin and flat.

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While keeping the top covered, flip the bottle over and align it on top of the bottle filled with pearls.

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Remove the cover.

Remove the cover and watch as the pearls rush into the top bottle.

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Reverse Hourglass

This activity is all about buoyancy and density! Density measures how tightly stuff is packed inside an object. Water is heavy and dense, while the tiny foam pearls are filled with air pockets, making them much lighter than water. When you connect the bottles, heavy water rushes down into the bottom bottle because gravity pulls harder on denser materials. As the water fills the bottom bottle, it pushes the lightweight foam pearls out of the way, sending them floating upward like an upside-down hourglass! If you don’t mind getting a little wet, this is an activity you can repeat over and over just by flipping the bottles back around.&nbsp;

small foam pearls

glass bottles

funnel

plastic card

Reverse Hourglass

physics

space

summer

Water squirters work by pressurizing reservoirs of water with air. As you pump the squirter, it gradually adds air to the reservoir, increasing the pressure. When you pull the trigger, the pressure is allowed to release and a stream of water shoots out! In this DIY project, we'll learn how to use the exact sample principles found in water squirters to launch a water rocket sky-high! Follow along with these simple steps and you'll be blasting off in no time.&nbsp;Want to make a bottle rocket without the hassle of gathering materials? Blast off with a <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/dp/bottle-rocket-blaster/6489" target="_self">Bottle Rocket Blaster</a> crate from the <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/store" target="_self">KiwiCo Store</a>! It includes a step-by-step video tutorial link, illustrated instructions, and all the materials you'll need!&nbsp;

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Drill a small hole through the center of your cork stopper. The hole should be just smaller than the diameter of your pump needle.

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 Wrap your cork in electrical tape until it fits snugly in the bottle opening.

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 Press your pump needle through the hole in the cork. Make sure the thicker end of the cork is pressed on first. 

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Use a small piece of clay to seal the cork around the pump needle. Make sure you don't clog the needle opening. 

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If you'd like, create rocket fins and a nose cone out of scrap plastic or coated paper. Color them with a marker to give your rocket some extra pizzazz! 

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In preparation for launch, fill your bottle part-way with water. Grab a friend and find a wide open space to launch your rocket. Have your friend press the cork into the bottle and flip it so the nose cone is pointing upwards and away from you. The bottle should gently rest in one hand and the pump should be firmly held in the other. When your friend and rocket are ready, start pumping! The pressure will start to build and after a few seconds, your rocket will blast off into the air!

What’s going on?
 The pressure bottle rocket works thanks to Newton’s third law of motion, which states that for every action, there is a reaction. As you pump up your rocket with air, pressure builds up inside. Eventually, this pressure pushes the rocket off of the cork and bicycle pump, and expels the water in the bottle downward — this is the action. The reaction to this downward movement of the water is the rocket’s own upwards movement, sending it high into the sky.&nbsp;

The world record for the greatest altitude achieved by a pressure bottle rocket (using only water and air) is 2,723 ft (830m) - which is just over half a mile! It may be simple, but the pressure bottle rocket is quite effective, and it is the basis for the design of rockets that are launched into outer space.

cork stopper

1 liter bottle (empty)

clay

electrical tape

drill

bike or ball pump

scrap plastic bottles or sheets (optional)

permanent marker (optional)

Pressure Bottle Rocket

chemistry

magic tricks

Valentine’s Day crafts

food experiments

Write secret messages to your friends and family and then let them decode it with any source of heat - like a candle or an incandescent light bulb!Keep exploring what acids can do with <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store/dp/planet-bath-bombs/3702" target="_self">Planet Bath Bombs</a> from the <a href="https://www.kiwico.com/us/store" target="_self">KiwiCo Store</a>! Mix citric acid, the same acid that makes lemons sour, with baking soda to mold planet-inspired bath bombs, then drop them in water and watch the fizz take off.

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Squeeze the juice of the lemon into a small bowl.

Some seeds may fall in, but you don’t need to fish them out.

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Using the cotton swab as a pencil, write a secret message on the paper. Then, let the paper dry completely.

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Bring your heat source close to the paper and watch as your secret message magically begins to appear! 

Lemon juice is mostly made of a variety of sugars, acids, and water. Normally, lemon juice is mostly clear, so when you dilute it even further in water, and paint that mixture onto some paper, you can't see it. However, heating up lemon juice causes some of its sugars to react with oxygen in the air (oxidation), which turns these sugars brown. Acids in the lemon juice can also react with fibers in the paper to make more sugars, which again turn brown in the heat. Your invisible ink might seem like magic, but really, it's all just chemistry.

lemon (1/2)

Small Bowl

cotton swabs

heat source (like a candle or an incandescent light bulb)

Invisible Ink with Lemon Juice

quick experiment

Grow a bubble full of swirling fog, then watch it burst. Your kids will be bubbling over with questions about how it works.

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Mix the dish soap and water in the small bowl.

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Fold a paper towel 3 times, hot dog style.

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Place the paper towel in the bubble mixture.

Grownups only on the dry ice. It's about -109°F, so use tongs, thick gloves, or a towel instead of bare hands. Work near an open window and keep the container open; sealed containers can burst. Never eat dry ice or put it in a drink. Let leftovers disappear on their own in an open container, out of reach.

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Fill up the larger bowl with water. Then place a chunk of dry ice into the bowl. Make sure to use gloves or a towel when handling dry ice!

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Take the paper towel and wipe it across the top of the bowl to create a bubble film. Make sure to keep contact between the towel and the edges of the bowl.

Add some soapy water to the rim of the bowl before wiping the towel across. Move the towel slowly so as to not pop the bubble. This will probably take multiple tries so don’t give up!

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Once the bubble covers the top of the bowl, it will start to fill up with the smoke from the dry ice.

The ice in your freezer is frozen water. Dry ice is frozen carbon dioxide (CO₂), and it sits at a chilly -109°F. Drop a piece into warm water and it skips the melting step, turning straight from a solid into a gas. Scientists call that sublimation.That gas comes out very cold. When it hits the warm, damp air just above the water, the water vapor in that air condenses into tiny droplets, and those droplets are the white fog you see. The gas also pushes up into your soap film. A bubble is a thin layer of water sandwiched between two layers of soap molecules, so as more gas piles in, the bubble stretches wider and wider. Once the film thins out, the bubble gives way and the fog comes rushing out.

paper towels

dish soap

large bowl

small bowl

dry ice

Dry Ice Bubble

Did you know you can make a vortex inside a bottle? All it takes is some hot glue, water, and a little food coloring. Spin it right and you'll use centripetal force to see exactly why tornadoes and whirlpools get their shape.

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Take the caps off the bottles and poke holes through them. You can do this with a pencil, scissors or with a drill.

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Use hot glue to connect the two caps together, face to face.

Make sure the two cap faces are placed flat against each other and not at an angle. Add the hot glue all the way around the cap to prevent water leakage.

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Wrap both caps in electrical tape.

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Fill one bottle about 70% with water. Adding food coloring is optional, but it helps you see the vortex better.&nbsp;

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Screw the bottles together, the one with water on the bottom.

100 fun easy experiment projects for kids

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