 There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium, and hydrogen, and oxygen, and nitrogen, and rhenium, and nickel, neodymium, and nickel. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, current science nerds, future science nerds. I'm a current science nerd, by the way. I have been for some time. Welcome to our 2013 Cool Chemistry Demo Show. It's a good start because that pause makes me sound like I'm begging for applause, which I'm not, not yet. Thank you. A couple of announcements first. For those volunteers that we are going to have on stage, have your tickets ready. We're going to make sure that the house lights are on between each demonstration, and if the current demonstration, the one that's coming up, will involve helpers from our audience. I will call out the numbers from the tickets. Please come on stage. When you come on stage, go towards that exit sign. Kevin, Emily, helpers, who are my students last year, will be giving you gloves and goggles. We are always going to be safe on stage, so all the students currently performing a demonstration, any helpers, and myself will always be wearing at least goggles. And when we work with anything particularly sensitive to the hands, we also wear gloves. So just in case everyone who comes up on stage will have gloves, too. I will ask you, if you do come on stage to follow the instructions, my instructions or my students' instructions, some of the chemicals we work with as always are dangerous, so make sure you do everything that you are told. All we want to do is have a fun, safe time tonight. We have 15 demonstrations, lots of whiz, lots of bang, extra special amounts of bang this year. And I have one of my own personal favorites. The idea for this show is not only to have fun, but to do a little bit of what I will call scientific literacy. Because we do so much with science and technology these days, any little bit of information that I can pass on, regardless of how small the person who's learning, that's the benefit that I hope to get. And that's what makes me happy. So, without further ado, the first demonstration, Katie and Hailey doing genie in the bottle. And let me say that Hailey gets a degree of difficulty because she happened to suffer a broken leg earlier this year and has been doing lab just the same getting around a little bit more difficult. The broken leg was not in lab, I guarantee you. Yes, I'm sure. I didn't see it happen, I'm always in lab. Okay, so, genie in the bottle. This is a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and manganese oxide. So the combination of hydrogen peroxide and the magnesium dioxide releases the oxygen and creates our quote unquote genie. And this particular reaction can be a little bit finicky, so, and particularly vigorous. Apparently there are two genies in that particular bottle. Nothing wrong with it working extra special well. Maybe we should give it an extra minute just in case it keeps going. Laughter is always good. So those are two of my organic students. This is their second year doing this particular show, and hopefully they'll come back. So, anyone who happens to graduate and wants to come back and participate, email me. You're more than welcome. Okay, our next trio is Lauren, Amira, and Maya, and they're going to do Diet Coke and Mentos. So, we need three volunteers. So remember, volunteers go to that side towards Kevin and Emily. So, I'm going to try to mix these up. This is from the younger group, the five to eight group. Don't worry, we'll get the older group a little bit later. Okay, seven zero three, seven seven one, seven zero three, seven seven one. I have seven zero three, six four one, seven zero three, six four one. And I have seven zero three, seven one six. So the last three numbers of each ticket. Seven seven one, six four one, seven one six. Please come on down. You're the next contestant, so the price is right. I think I make that joke every year. So, if our helpers would come up front now. So we have three bottles of Diet Coke in our blue chamber. Now, those of you that want to try this at home, one, I would suggest doing this outside. One, it can be messy. Two, Diet Coke is the one, the soda that works best. And there's an episode of Mythbusters where they try a whole bunch, they mix all the chemicals together. It is Diet Coke that works best. So make sure if you do try this, it is Diet Coke. I am not speaking for the Coca-Cola company, it's just what works best. Okay, so make sure you step back quickly when you do this. Excellent. Thank you very much. You can go back to the side and give your goggles and gloves. So, this is the reason why I suggest doing this outside. This is why we keep the, yep, it's still gone. One of them. This is why we have the plastic drop cloths down. Because it saves for cleanup later for the, so the custodial staff doesn't have to do too much later. Okay, now, the first bangs. Drew and Pichu are going to be doing a various number of balloons. And so this time we're going to have the older group. Let me mix these up properly. Okay, first number, 703736, 703736, 703715, 703715, so last three digits, 736, 715. Okay, so in the various balloons that we have, some contain just hydrogen. One of them contains hydrogen and oxygen. And we will set them off one, then one, then ten. Never done ten before. But I have a feeling it will be safer than the big one we did last year. Okay, so hydrogen burns just like any fuel. So, our two helpers are going to set off the individual balloons here. Now, these are pretty loud. So if you're sensitive to sound, I would cover your ears. Gonna have the lights down please. Now the next one. This contains hydrogen and oxygen. It should be louder. Go back to the side and deposit your goggles and gloves. We'll wait for them to sit down before we set off our chain reaction. These are just hydrogen balloons, but there's ten. So if we just set one off, the rest should set off. Used to those balloons, I've been doing that ever since I was in college, and it was a long time ago. My heart's kind of racing in that one. I'm going to take a few deep breaths. Okay, thank you Drew and Pichu for those hydrogen balloons. Next year we'll try 20. I have two more organic students, Garrett and Andrew, and they are going to do lycopodium powder and a flame tornado in combination. So we need one more older assistance. 703-734. 703-734. Please proceed to the right of the stage. So, the first part is just going to be lycopodium powder. This is dragon's breath, and we're gonna have it. So, lycopodium is a moss. If you dry that moss, the spores end up becoming very fine. It looks sort of like flour, but it's even finer than that. In fact, it's actually used as a binding agent. You can find lycopodium powder sometimes used in ice cream. I found that out last year. It's very strange to hear that. But, if you blow it through a flame, well, we'll see what happens. And we need a good, strong breath for this. The next part of this is going to be a little bit more complex, because we're just trusting our chemists with this. So, we're gonna do a flame tornado. Here is a turntable. And to protect the turntable, which is made of bamboo, we have a little bit of foil. We don't want to set the turntable on fire. And we have an alcohol. While we could just light the flame tornado the normal way, with the lighter, it's alright. Go ahead. 75%. Just do it. Okay. Alright, that's fine. Sometimes you'll hear me use the phrase, go big or go home. That's what the 10 balloons was all about. So, Garrett's gonna set this. Hopefully, I'll step back. Now, one of the important things about these demonstrations is that sometimes they don't always work. But we have a backup on this one, so I think we can get this one to work. And if it doesn't work this way, that will still be flammable and we'll get the flame tornado to work on there. So, yeah. It's a good thing you have that foil because you don't have to get the flame extinguisher out unless absolutely necessary. That's why I'm here. I don't actually do any chemistry. I just put out fires. Put it on the slate over there and let it sort of burn out. I don't know if that's what people want to hear. But as you know, I'm up here. I'm an MC. I'm supposed to be funny. Trust me, it's all, it's safe. Okay. Thank you, Garrett and Andrew. I really like that fire tornado to work. By the way, you can do this alone at home with parental supervision. The turntable I got at Walmart. I also got the waste bucket there. It's mesh, so you need to make sure you have air going through. And if you use something like wood alcohol, it will work just fine. The green color that we used came from borax. So borax detergent you could use for that too. So all of that you can make at home if you wish. Okay. Next up, Austin and Evely doing homemade bouncing balls. We need one helper from the younger audience. 703-650-703-650. Please proceed to the right extent. I'm just looking at the order on this. Now, if you haven't played with a super ball, if you're particularly young, I suggest you do. It's fun. I used to get them all the time. I used to beg for a quarter for the little machines and at that point it was Kmart and got one and used to bounce it everywhere and then it would just completely disappear. Well, you can actually make them. Now, these aren't going to be super balls, but if you use the right polymer, you can get them to bounce. And we're going to be starting with a sodium silicate solution. So the combination of sodium silicate and ethanol, a silicone polymer, a very simple one. Austin, if you can list that up. So for those who may not be able to see very well from the top, it is now a sort of white jelly. And if you form a ball in your hands and squeeze out the excess alcohol and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze, that's the other thing about science experiments. Many of them don't go instantaneously like an exploding balloon. And my Gen Chem and organic students will could tell you sometimes it takes three hours to do an experiment. And they're usually looking at me with evil eyes if that happens. Okay, let's have our assistant try to bounce it. Sodium silicate, another name for sodium silicate is water glass. This is something I think you can get from craft stores. So that with a little bit of alcohol and you can make your own bouncy balls. Now one thing you can do also with that is add a little bit of food coloring and make all sorts of interesting colors. So thank you to our assistant. Thank you to Austin and Emily. Now it's my turn. So this is one of... You're going to see a version of this a little bit later. This is an ordinary, very, very large bottle. You could use a collagen water bottle for this. Well, if not most of it, to vaporize. And so this is going to take a little bit of effort. And let me tell you that I have a four month old son and he likes to be carried. So my arms are a lot stronger than they used to be. And everyone always asks me, well, do you hope he turns out to be a scientist? If he does, that's great. And if not, as long as he's a nice guy we're not going to force it on. And those people who have not been here before, this is also a chemist. And those of you interested in going to another cool chem show hers is next Thursday at UW-Manitou. So she gets free advertising. And she always does her second, so she always gets free advertising. Now I need to make sure I pour out all the liquid here so all that's left should be vapor. Now you could do this with any number of alcohols. I chose an ethanol, but you could do this with methanol. You could even do this with rubbing alcohol. This one is kind of left for me to try again. And I'm going to do this with any number of alcohols. And if I wanted to turn that green, I would just use the borax that Andrew and Garrett used for their flame tornado. So that is called the Woosher bottle. Now, when you combust something in a small, in a space like that, the gas that's formed has to escape. And so the rush of air that you get from that gas is what makes the loud sound. So we'll come back to that one because we'll be able to do something like that again. Okay, next is Doug and Chloe. They have a $20 bill of mine that they are going to not set on fire. So we're going to need two helpers. So we're going to do this out in front here. So we'll make sure everyone will be able to see. We're just keeping everything up here for the time being. Okay, two helpers. 703651, 703651. And 703654. So last three days of 651, 654. Please go to the right of the stage. For the show, this is called the non-burning $20 bill, but we're actually going to do three things here. The first one is going to be mine, and then our helpers are going to do two other ones. Now, those of you that are sitting in the back of the stage may not see this, but this is a $20 bill. In fact, it came from my wallet. So whatever happens to this is my fault. That's why I'm doing this one. And have the lights down, please. Okay, now, one of the things about our dollar bills, up to, I don't know, which $500 bill, is that it don't absorb a lot of liquid. Now, you may not be able to see this from where you are, but you saw the flame. This $20 bill is undamaged, and I can still buy more chemistry supplies with it. Although it smells a little bit like alcohol. I don't want to spend it just yet. Okay, now we're going to go bigger. So, we're going to go from a bill to a towel. The lights down, please. Now, what is in the magic solution is a combination of alcohol and water. The alcohol burns, and the water protects the piece of fabric, hopefully. Also contained within the liquid is some salt. So which salt does it in this one? Potassium was in that one. And strontium. You might have to spread this out so they can see it. Now, this is a t-shirt with an approved slogan. Oh, it ran. Is it on the other side? Okay. It's a camp rocks. Okay. Be careful. Light it up. That's always a fun thing to say. Be careful. We do have a bucket of water under this, just in case. One point, we have to show you that these are non-harms. So, the water protects the fabric, and so you can see that they might just be barely singed, but they are largely protected. I would like to keep that t-shirt, if you don't mind. Thank you very much, Doug and Chloe. Now, this next one, I've never done this one. In fact, I've never done this in my life, which would probably shock people, but what we have next is a potato gun. Now, I've never made a potato gun, PVC pipe, a little bit of flammable liquid, and an ignition source. So, we tested this out the other day, and because potatoes can be a little bit hard, okay, we're going to use a tomato. And thank you, Garrett. I would actually move that way. So, the idea is we're going to fire the tomato into this. If it flatters, they break. What Dom is going to be using is ether, a spray ether. In the chamber, it's going to ignite, and much like the Worcester bottle, it's going to force air out, and because we have a projectile, a projectile should come out. Now, I've seen this go a quarter of a mile with a potato. I hope this works. Guys, but we did get this to work. So, Dom is spraying the ether into the chamber. That's the flame source. And then there's a button on the side that provides the spark. Okay. Some things don't work necessarily the first time, so we're going to try it. Just one more time maybe. It'll all work. Otherwise, there's a nice green tarp here. Green screen. Green screen, yes. Make it look like it works. If anyone has a suit of this exact color, we can get them and film them and do some very interesting things. This is something to do only with a parent's supervision. Compressing that through the smaller part of PVC. I just need to clean them all up. All right, screw it. All right. Okay. Nina and Ben, and they're going to be doing Man Easy. This is another one of my favorites. Yeah, you can move away. So, what we have are two large blocks of dry ice. These can be purchased. Sometimes at gas stations I get mine from Prax Air. You can also buy it at air gas. Now, one of the important things about dry ice, it is solid carbon dioxide and the temperature is very, very cold. So, this is not ice you want to touch without gloves. So, anytime you handle dry ice, you want to make sure that you wear gloves always. Even winter gloves may not be enough because it's so cold. Now, what they poured into the little chamber they made is solid magnesium and they're going to light it and then put the other block on top. So, can I get the lights down please? Now, this is magnesium. So, if you've ever seen a magician suddenly make a flame come out of the sleeve, that's magnesium power. It reacts with oxygen, but magnesium also reacts with carbon dioxide. So, the magnesium was burning while it was in an atmosphere of carbon dioxide surrounded by that dry ice. So, what we have inside is carbon and magnesium oxide. Now, I think I heard a question, why is it always white? The crystal form that ice makes both water ice and carbon dioxide when the light goes through it doesn't it basically makes white light so that's why you always see it as white. I'm not sure how fast the smoke will dissipate but I think it's safe to move at this. I've never seen it go that bright. Now, the other important thing about magnesium and why we cover it up is that if it was just burning it would have been too bright to look at. In fact, I had to block a little bit. So, magnesium when it burns is a very, very white light and it's very bright. So, don't try burning magnesium at home. Okay, so, next is Amanda, which unfortunately I spelled incorrectly on the sheet. I'm sorry. Again, Rebecca, Heather and Iris and they're doing Melvin's toothpaste. Now, we need a lot of helpers for this one. Okay, so I'm going to be announcing a lot of numbers so let's pay attention to the numbers that I read out. Okay. I'm just going to read the last three digits because I think the first three digits are all 703. Yeah, you can dump it right in there. Okay. 721, last three digits 721, please proceed to the right. This is going to be a combination. These right now are the younger 776. So, we have 721 and 776 and 768. So, the three younger ones 721, 776 768 and now the older group 729 and 725. So, the five numbers that I have 725, 729, 721, 776 and 768. You have won $3 million for the Powerball Water. Sorry, just teasing. Okay, so, we have five different experiments for versions of elephants' toothpaste. Now, there's one version of here this that you can do at home. If you have a two-liter bottle, you need baker's yeast that has been mixed with water and warmed up and you need a 3% hydrogen peroxide. That's the kind of peroxide that you can get over the counter. Now, the other version of this that we're going to do is the peroxide at 30% and that is the concentration that salons use for hydrogen peroxide. So, now we have lighting effects because of all the smoke that's left. So, cool lighting, cool special effects. So, we're going to do this one at a time so if we can have our helpers line up in the back here so just come around the side. So, each one of these experiments is going to involve a simple course. So, which one are we doing first? Okay, so, why don't you put those up? Perhaps the tallest person should do the graduated cylinder. We have too many choices. We'll do it one at a time. Make sure we have all the problems. Here. So, what we have in here is simple dishwashing detergent. So, it's safe. So, the fact that Rebecca has it on her hands is okay. If you do this in a smaller container, the foam, the soap will come out faster. I think you can try to move those to the side. Okay, three more to go. Now, the way we can make this foam is by releasing oxygen. So, if you remember the genie in the bottle from the first demo, that reaction also released oxygen from hydrogen peroxide. This one does too. This may go for a while. But we're still making toothpaste. This could go on for quite a while. We're going to go on to the next set of experiments and that's burning salts with brandy and sin. So, we need two more helpers from the older group. As you can see, most of the time we do fire, it's going to be from the older group just to be safe. Okay, so, last three digits, seven, six, five. Seven, six, five. And last three digits, seven, three, two. Last three digits, seven, three, two. Seven, six, five. Please proceed to the right of the stage. Now, who likes fireworks? Okay. Now, there's actually an entire discipline of chemistry that's chemistry of fireworks. So anytime you see fireworks, a chemist helped to make them. A chemist used different solves to make different colors. You have red and blue and green and yellows. So when this summer, the 4th of July, you're looking at those fireworks. And by the way, I live in Manitowoc. My writing laws live in two rivers. Two rivers have the best fireworks. And they're easily seen from everywhere. They're not on the plug. I'm sure the fireworks around Shibuya are great too. But the colors that you see are from different salts and they're packed into the material within the fireworks themselves. And so when they explode and they burst into flame, you get different colors. Now, we're going to do it on a much more simple scale. But we're going to make different colors. So can I get the lights down please? As with any flame, safety first. We're going to be using for our flame source is a propane torch. So pay close attention to the flame. It'll start out blue, but it's turning green. And I'm assuming this is copper. It's boric acid, the same color as the flame tornado was. So that's one of them. Now we'll do another one. Which one is this one? Strontium. So strontium is generally orange and red. Sometimes the spray bottles don't work very well. There we go. Not too close. So that was boric acid and strontium. Now, calcium is next. You can just keep the propane going. Anytime you can keep a torch going. So calcium is orange. So the mixture that they're spraying is water, alcohol, and a little bit of the salt. And you don't need very much in order to get that color. Next one? Potassium. It looks kind of whitish, but it's supposed to be purple. You can see a little bit of purple in there. It looks lavender. One more? Potium is last. And that's orange. So when you think about fireworks and you see these colors in the summer, think about these different salts. Oh, you have copper. This is copper metal. And if you put that metal right into the flame, you'll get some of that color. So that's the resistance. The next one is a new one for me. That's Amber, Nick, and Jacob. And they're doing the barking dog. Okay. We'll try to clean up a little bit while you guys are getting set up. Okay. So the barking dog is a reaction between the liquid carbon disulfide and nitrous gas. So nitrous, there are two major uses. Black and gas. And that's a sudden beginning gas. That's what nitrous is. The other is an additive for fuel. So if you hear about nitrous or nitro in fuel for racing, it's the same gas. Now they're going to be mixing it in this length of PVC tube that we're capping. And once it's lit, well, you should hear soon. So now they have to mix those two things together. Hopefully get them to vaporize. And we're going to drop a lit piece of cotton in, and that will be the ignition source. And sometimes it doesn't always work. I would... Okay, try it. We'll do it one more time. Back, back, back. Graduates. Sometimes I, you know, I have a dry mouth right now for speaking, so sometimes the words don't come out just yet. They'll come right back. Okay, so what can I talk about science? Okay, I can talk about science. So one of the things that I would suggest, and I've always been asked about where can I find science experiments. Well, there are a lot of different books out there that you can use. There's also the internet as a resource, and so you could go to YouTube. There's a lot of cool videos out there. One of the things that I would caution you, and this is mostly for the parents, is sometimes those are fake. Sometimes they don't provide all of the ingredients, so make sure that when you go to any specific website, particularly YouTube, that they provide an ingredients list. There's a lot of things that you can do at home, and there's specific books that you can buy for kitchen chemistry and do at home. So you can make slime. So this is a good time to talk about slime. So I don't really make this announcement before the show. This is a good time. So after the show, everyone exits the stage, all the way around, and the science building, the broad science building is back to my left. Everyone who's here can make slime. So Professor Root Camp, as she does every year, had her students, and some of the organic students that were up here earlier, will be helping you make slime upstairs that you can take home. So everyone gets to take home something. So follow the balloons. I'll make it another announcement at the end of the show. The second floor of the science building is where everything's at. Now I can do the jeopardy thing. I'm going to give them 10 more seconds before I get worried. I think that God Beware sacrifice guys can get their stuff up here. So the next experiment we'll do is gummy sacrifice. But hopefully the barking dog people will come back. Hopefully they just haven't banished into the rain. Go ahead and get this started. We don't want to make these people sit too long. Okay so while we wait for the barking dog group to come back, this is going to be gummy bear sacrifice. So what Matt is heeding right now is solid potassium chlorate. It is a strong oxidizing agent. And what we're going to do is sacrifice a little bit of candy. Now who doesn't like candy? Okay, a few people. Again who doesn't does not like candy. Okay, still a few. By the way there's a lot of natural sugar in fruits too but in candy it's much more concentrated. And that sugar can be reacted with this potassium chlorate and all of the oxygen is liberated. So if you think about a lot of the experiments we've done, it's liberating oxygen. The oxygen we breathe they're back. So this will take a few minutes so you guys can keep going. Alright, we're going to try the barking dog again. Take two. I'm here to help. Okay so, again, science experiments don't often work. But we learned something from it. In that case I think more nitrous was the result. Okay so, we need two helpers. Two helpers from the older group. The sacrifice candy. 639 722 639 and 722 those are the last three digits of each ticket. So please come up, get goggles and gloves. Can I get the lights down please? We're going to do one first. Step back, man. Step back. So all of the light and heat and more smoke is from the liberation of oxygen from sugar. So when you eat sugar your body gets that energy. Now, your body doesn't make it that way. Wouldn't it be fun if our stomachs made our energy that way? Probably not. Now, body has different biochemical ways of getting that energy and that's how when you eat sugar for about an hour or two afterwards you can go like crazy and then you crash. Now, what we're going to do next is try this not with another gummy bear but with a peanut M&M. Now, at the center of the M&M M&M contains a lot of protein and protein can be broken down too. It does take a little bit of time to melt all this solid but we're getting there. It doesn't all need to be dissolved as long as we're close. So, now we're going to try the peanuts and as soon as you drop it in, step back. Peanuts are tricky. It's like those M&M commercials that the M&M is trying to escape. Go ahead. Step back. Step back. Apparently, there's even more energy and sugar. Oh, sorry, more sugar in an M&M. Now, step back. Get to the protein. Hopefully. Okay, I guess it's finished. So, that is how much energy you can get from a gummy bear in an M&M. So, imagine eating a whole bag. So, we only have two more demonstrations left so hopefully the smoke that we make won't be too big of a deal. Now, the second to last one this is a pretty dangerous one. So, no helpers on this one. Now, thermites, what we have is a mixture of iron oxide basically rust and aluminum powder and the reaction will make molten iron. Now, the way we have this set up is that the molten iron should come through and into the sand. Now, this can get very bright so wash your eyes on this and start the fire. So, we're going to start this and then back away. Lights off, please. Sometimes the iron doesn't go through, it goes out. So, the sparks that you saw were molten iron. And if you look at the rubber that's on stage, this is a few years old that we've used this and there are some holes that's mostly for the thermite. So, I would just leave it there. We'll just move to the whole table. So, most of those spots, you can feel how much heat is coming on. Molten iron, I don't know the exact number but I think it's several thousand degrees. So, not something I want to touch at the moment. Okay. So, our last experiment of the night is Cody, Elliot and Jason, and they're going to do an imploding can. This is going to be a 55 gallon drum. Now, what we have up here is a kiddie pool. You would have stepped in because it's full of ice water at the moment. So, in the back, they have been heating a 55 gallon drum with some water in it since the beginning of the show. So, they're hoping to vaporize all of that water and when you cool the entire can, you condense all that water and it acts like a vacuum. We hope this works. Now, since they're ready to bring it up in a minute or two, and I'll just remind you that once the show is over, if you proceed out to the left, you can also go to the right if there's too many people. As long as you go around the Fine Arts Building, the Science Building is behind us. Go up to the second floor and there will be slime to make. So, thank you very... I will say thank you now, don't leave yet. Thank you very much for attending. I love doing this show. It's always a stress on me but it's always a good time. Okay, here we go.