What to do with a bucket, a drilling machine, some Tinkertoy pieces, a LED (2 actually, one red and 1 green depending on the direction of rotation of the wheel), a silicon/glue gun, a little box , a set of pulleys (of diameters 6:1) ,and some imagination?
YES!!!That´s it! An electricity generator with a water wheel! This is certainly POETRY!!!
Actually one could become really creative, and make wonderful works of art, such as this one made by a 9 y old kid:
Incredible, isn´t it? The funny thing is that the dog actually worked well when the water fell into it.
Unfortunately, it did not happen the same with the "eye-wheel" made by another kid of the same age, because the wheel could not rotate properly! But looks utterly beautiful, anyway.
We took this experiment to its limits: we just did not want to try it on a water tab any longer. And this is why...
this beautiful masterwork came to life. Thanks to all who helped me to set it up! (and to the owners of the fontain to allow me to build "THIS CRAZY CONSTRUCTION" inside theirs).
Because bubbles are fun I tried to make some big bubbles at home. I started looking what is published on the Internet. And I did found this fantastic website:
The problem was I could not find all the ingredients from the recommended recipe around where I live. So I kept on looking. I decided to avoid buying distilled water because it is expensive, or J-lube, because there was not at my local pharmacy. I decided just to use the cheapest washing liquid I could find, tap water, glycerol and sugar.
Materials and methods:
Materials (bought all from a local Swedish shopping center)
-Soap bubble mix/liquid: water (from hot tab in Stockholm, around 40 degrees celsius), ICA basic dish washing liquid (green colour and with perfume) and glycerol (Hjärtans and Lloyds apotek, 350mL bottle), in ratio 20:2:1.
- Bubble wand: a hanger that I reshaped into a circle.
-Moat:a plant plate with stones and plastic toys (Maggie Simpson and a skull) for decoration in a oven tray (covered by aluminium foil).
Methods:
-Time: waiting time 3h.
Results:
Experiment 1:
Experiment 2: reducing the surface area of the bubble mix (increasing the middle and dry tray).
Experiment 3: changing the height of the object situated in the middle of the tray for the same area of the surface bubble mix as Experiment 1.
Experiment 4: dragon (same object than experiment 3) for the same area of the surface bubble mix as Experiment 2.
All the times tried the bubble burst. Therefore I include no picture of this experiment.
EXPERIMENT 5
Well, now it looks I am becoming an expert bubbleoligst. I have really improved my solution from trial and error. Now I can confirm that guar gum works the best, even better than glycerol. I bought the guar gum from the internet (guarkärnmjöl in Swedish) and just a small amount will work perfectly. My final recept was a modification from Imagination Station´s webside:
1. Add 80mL YES washing-up liquid (YES diskmedel XXL, from Willys) in a 1L candy recipient (1 L godislåda) and mix with 1.5 g of guar gum powder (guarnkärnmjöl from bodystore.se) using a blender. The guar gum will slow down the evaporation time of the water molecules in the bubble, allowing them to last for longer time.
2. Add 1L of water slowly while you continue to remove the mixture with a spoon. Treat the mixture as it was "bechamel", the white flour sauce frequently used in Spanish/French recepts. The idea is that the mixture keeps homogeneous and no clumps form. If they do form, try to break them by pressing them with the spoon. Do not use the blender to distroy the clumps when the water is added, because it will create lots of foam.
3. Once the mixture is homogeneous by simple eye, add 4.5 g of baking powder. This will change the pH of the mixture and leave the perfect condictions for the washing-up liquid to work.
4. Finally, keep on mixing with the spoon until no clumps are left.
Now you are ready to try with cotton-thread triangle wands. And enjoy!!Note: it works better in days with high humidity!
