Make Amazing Square Bubbles and Explore Bubble Science

Here’s What You’ll Need

1. straws
2. pipe cleaners
3. a lot of bubble solution (in a large container)

Make a Square Bubble

Step 1: Cut the straws into 12 4-inch pieces (10 cm). Cut the pipe cleaners into 12 8-inch pieces (20 cm).

Step 2: Slide each pipe cleaner into a straw.

Step 3: Twist the pipe cleaner ends together to form the straw pieces into a cube. Then tuck all the pipe cleaner ends back into the straws so they don’t stick out. 

Step 4: Dip the straw cube into your bubble solution.

Step 5: Gently jiggle the straw cube until the bubble film snaps together to form bubble sheets that connect in the middle.

Step 6: Dip a straw into the bubble solution and blow gently into the point where the bubble sheets connect. Ta-da! You have a square bubble in the middle of the straw cube.

What’s going on? 

Have you ever wondered why bubbles are round? When you blow a bubble, you’re stretching out the bubble solution. The bubble solution doesn’t want to be stretched, though, and will try to make itself as small as possible. When you blow a bubble, it turns out that the smallest surface area that a bubble can create while keeping the same amount of air inside is in the shape of a sphere.

The cube-shaped bubble is only possible due to the straw cube. The angled bubble film inside the straw cube pulls on the bubble you blew into the middle. That bubble is trying to stretch as little as possible, but it’s getting pulled on by the bubble sheets in just the right way to form it into a cube.