
Try this at home - science experiments for everyone - ColinWright
http://www.t2ah.com/
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jgrahamc
Great stuff. Here's another home experiment: disappearing ink.

<http://blog.jgc.org/2012/03/fun-with-phenolphthalein.html>

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Angostura
Worth noting; phenolphthalein is a powerful laxative. Wash your hands
carefully.

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__float
We used phph all the time in chem classes...funny no one ever mentioned that.
Though with a group of high school students, perhaps it was for the better.
Nice to know, thanks.

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JoeAltmaier
They didn't mention collecting the hydrogen in an inverted jar, and lighting
it on fire! Real science experiments go bang!

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gouranga
Good stuff! Need more simple practical things like that - it is really
interesting.

Slight side topic: Bit of "biology" I've been experimenting with at home based
on stuff I had lying around. Works really well...

Items: 2l coke/water bottle, 2l Cheap apple juice (preservative free), sachet
instant bakers yeast, 100g sucrose sugar, sterlising tablets, balloon.

Steps: Empty coke/water down the drain or gob, sterlise bottle, put everything
but the balloon in it, screw lid on and shake for a couple of mins, take lid
off, prick hole in ballooon and stick on bottle neck so it inflates, leave in
warm cupboard for a week, put a couple of teaspoons of sugar in it, screw
normal lid on and shake, leave for 2 days, put in fridge for 4 hours, drink,
fall over :)

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montecarl
In case anyone didn't follow, this is a recipe for alcoholic carbonated apple
cider. So easy a kid could do it! The part to be careful about is the
carbonation step where you put in more sugar and put the lid on. If you put
too much sugar its possible that the bottle will explode.

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gouranga
I learned how to do it off my friend's 12 year old so you are right there...

Good point about the exploding bottle - using plastic coke bottles is way
safer than glass though even if they do blow.

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mirkules
Here's a fun one that the kids love:

Get a bowl of water, a salt shaker, pepper shaker, and dishwashing detergent
(the liquid kind).

Imagine the bowl of water is a swimming pool. Now add some white sheep (salt),
and some black sheep (pepper). Finally, add the big, bad wolf (a drop of
detergent) and watch the black sheep swim away to safety!

I think this happens because the detergent spreads out a very thin film onto
the surface of the water and pushes all the pepper out. The salt is only for
effect/imagination purposes. To this day, this still fascinates me.

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AsylumWarden
Ah, I used to love these things growing up. I remember a book I always read at
the library but I can't think of the name of hand. It had awesome experiments
like making your own dye, growing various types of crystals, recycling rags to
make paper, and it got better. Toward the back of the book they got really
good with things like making gun powder, making rocket engines, cutting glass
bottles and jars using electricity, reusing a tv flyback coil to make big
sparks and explode wood. It was an awesome book! Nothing that would be allowed
in a library today I'm afraid.

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raverbashing
Great experiments!

Too bad most of them are really easy/for kids. The ones in this blog are a bit
more high level (I didn't know the orange one).

I remember "The Amateur Scientist" at SciAm, but those were _really_ difficult
experiments. (Of course I wanted to be like that when I "grew up")

But I did my share of setting fire to things. Two words: microwave transformer
(don't try this at home kids)

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damoncali
Cool. Does anyone know of something similar, but aimed more at little kids? My
kids are growing tired of baking soda and vinegar...

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nhebb
Bill Nye _The Science Guy_ has a bunch on his website.

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plancien
Nice initiative. I like the fact that it's well explained, and that the goal
isn't to show only stuffs with a huge "wow" effect.

