brisance
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Science Fair project ideas
This spring I will be entering into the Science Fair with intent to advance to the higher levels of competition. My current idea is to research the
kinetics of an oscillating Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. (Two years ago, the winning team project in the International Science Fair researched the
kinetics of the less complicated Iodine Clock reaction.)
Does anyone have any ideas for a science fair project?
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tokat
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quartz +battery, some silcon and a battery mix
[Edited on 19-12-2004 by tokat]
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mick
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In the past I have done the chemical garden which covers osmosis.
You can run a clock with lemons.
mick
[Edited on 6-1-2005 by mick]
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cyclonite4
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| Quote: | Originally posted by mick
In the past I have done the chemical garden which covers osmosis.
You can run a clock with lemons.
mick
[Edited on 6-1-2005 by mick] |
Ah yes, I remember the old lemon batteries. 
The one when you stick in zinc and copper rods for terminals. I had to do an experiment about 3-4 years ago, where we measured the voltage produced
 , how lame. I managed to get a small hobby motor running on lemons, built a
little car out of it  .
There is a thread in one of the forums called "Manganese Heptoxide type reaction", it involves a mix of sulfuric acid, a flammable liquid,
and dropping a piece of MnO2 in it to make it spontaneously catch fire, do a search for that thread and have a look.
\"It is dangerous to be right, when your government is wrong.\" - Voltaire
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Quantum
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Hello there!
Ignore the above comments; we don't want you to get a bad impression of our forum.
Belousov reaction
I think that reaction would be a winner but you also might want to look into coordinational chemistry or something interesting and appealing like the
synth of asprin. Are there limitations on the reactions you can preform beyond legalities?
Quantum
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hodges
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I thought (at least back when I was in school) science projects were supposed to show effects and hypothesis testing. I recall at one science fair we
had one Oriental guy who had litterally thousands of transparencies of some type of mathematical graph theory he had studied. I know he had to have
spent hundreds of hours. He won nothing, because the point of a science fair was not to "study" things. I always did projects with titles
of the format "The Effects of ----- on ------". For example, "The Effects of Temperature on Capacitors". I would then frame a
hypothesis ("Capacitance will increase with temperature" and devise a way
to test it. I never got first place but I usually got some type of an award.
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brisance
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I am fairly resolute on studying the chemical kinetics of a Belousov Zhabotinsky reaction. My first question is which of the BZ reactions should I
study?
I am strongly considering this reaction. Other reactions can be found on purdue's website as well.
Quantum: There are reasonable legal limitations; however, chemicals that might otherwise be suspicious or even scheduled are available to me (under
supervision). What suggestions for experimentation do you suggest? Experimentally determining an alternate synthesis of acetic acid or acetic
anhydride is a possibility if it were plausible.
Hodges: The purpose of science fair is, in its simplest terms, acquire and synthesize data experimentally.
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sparkgap
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I wouldn't worry about acquring the bromates and malonic acid, but I think the Ce(IV) needed for the "brusselator" type reactions would
be slightly difficult to acquire. Not exactly cheap.
If my memory serves me right, o-phen is a (not very well known) indicator used for pH and some metals (it chelates good).
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