What do you get when you combine water, cornstarch, an amplifier and a speaker? (Besides a mess.) You make cornstarch monsters.
Depending on the frequency played through the speaker and the vibrations it makes, the cornstarch will move and dance. Cornstarch is a non-Newtonian fluid which means it becomes a solid when it is under stress and a liquid when it flows. The trick is to find the right frequency that makes the best vibrations to move the cornstarch. You can actually see the sound.
This is a fun activity to take to a friend’s house and borrow their stereo equipment. For more on Cornstarch Monsters, read the experiment.
Last night we gave away several copies of my new book, Naked Eggs and Flying Potatoeson Facebook and Twitter. We had a lot of fun chatting with some amazing teachers, parents and science enthusiasts and asking Steve Spangler Science trivia questions. In all, we gave away over 20 copies of the book. Now here’s your chance to own the book before it becomes available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Greenleaf Book Group gave us 200 advance copies to sell before the September 13th release date. I’ll even sign the books during this special pre-sale time. If you want a book before everyone else gets it, grab one today.
With a title like Naked Eggs and Flying Potatoes, you know that this probably isn’t going to be your ordinary book of experiments. At the early stages of writing this book, we had to put our heads together and try to think of a way to make this book different from the thousands of science experiment books out there. It’s true… just saying the words science experiment book will spawn a contagious outbreak of uncontrollable yawns followed by hours of sleep. So, how was I going to inspire my team to help me create a book that was different? Take a look…
We started by building a list of the most popular science experiments that I’ve had the opportunity to present over the years – in the classroom, on television and on our website. The next step was to use amazing photography to capture the wow-factor of each activity. It’s no different that thumbing through the pages of a
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As I mentioned in a previous post, it’s always fun to stumble across Quirkles videos on YouTube. These fun children’s books support connecting science and literature, which is one of our passions around Steve Spangler Science. This week, Quirkles co-founder Terri Johnson, headed back to Ozarks First KOLR 10 news to show off some of the cool properties of Oobleck… the cornstarch and water quicksand. Terri had a great time getting messy with the KOLR 10 anchor and even made mention of the growing popularity of walking on “water” with the gooey Oobleck. If you are a fan of Spangler Science or the Ellen Degeneres show, you probably remember when I stormed the stage of the Ellen show with a cement truck, a few hundred gallons of water, 2,500 boxes of cornstarch and a very brave audience member, who walked across a giant pool of Oobleck! It’s great to see Terri in her Spangler Science tie dye lab coat playing with the “Zop”! The set of all 26 wild and wacky Quirkles books can be bought on our site at SteveSpanglerScience.com.
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There’s only one problem with these “best of” video lists… someone has to actually sort through all of the videos and come up with a list! Props to our genius video editor, Bradley Mayhew, for all of his editing magic in 2008. When the year starts out with 4,500 pounds of cornstarch and water and a cement truck on The Ellen Degeneres Show… you know it’s going to be quite a year! Our video and experiment library has grown to almost 400, with 70 new science videos added to our science video library just this year. Selecting our Top 10 Videos for the year was tough, but here are our personal favorites. Let us know what you think…
