We have all sorts of dangerous machines, chemicals, and people around us. We can either try to isolate ourselves from them to stay safe or we can learn how to deal with them. At Rock-it Science we feel that it is very important to learn how to deal with dangerous situations. In the Older Students Class (Age 12-16), we sometimes use strong chemicals, high voltage, and other materials and processes that can be dangerous if the student does not follow instructions. Before you register your child for this advanced class, be sure they have the emotional maturity to focus on the lesson, listen carefully to instructions and safety warnings, and perform the experiments as directed. If your child is over 12 years old but is not ready for this kind of advanced class, he or she may register for the Mixed Age Class (Age 5-16).
Making Light with Fire: Compare light from nuclear fusion explosion with light from acetylene, kerosene, candles, wood, and limestone. Then you’ll add some pure oxygen to see what happens.
Match Rockets: With a little attention to detail you can send a lit match clear across the lab under its own power!
Earth’s Heat Engines: People can make steam engines, jet engines, gasoline engines, and rocket engines but nothing we make comes close to the thunderstorm heat engines made by nature.
Exploding Film Cans: Practically no one uses photographic film any more… so what can we do with all the left-over film containers? Why, blow them up of course! We might even learn a little something about air/fuel mixtures.
Strobe Lights: With a bit of trickery we can set up a tin can target for you to shoot with an air-soft gun at close range but you won’t be able to hit it!
Gas Masks: There are some very simple and effective ways to protect yourself from poison gasses. You’ll get a chance to try some out, but sadly you will not get to use poison gas. Instead we’ll find something really smelly that will work just the same.
Magnetic Levitation: You’ll investigate ways to make something hover by mutual attraction, repulsion, and by spinning or linear motion.
Catalysts: Discover how to make copper stay red hot just by dangling it above a clear liquid. Then you can try making soap and water leap instantly into the air while becoming steaming hot and releasing pure oxygen.
Magnetic Force Amplification: You will see how strong neodymium magnets can be, and then try to make some really cheap magnets even more powerful than that.
Casting Tin: Experiment with molten tin pouring it into molds of different types and then melting it again.