I did an Ice Cream lab with Ivy, Erika, and Liam. We created chocolate ice cream using unsweetened cocoa powder, heavy whipping cream, whole milk, vanilla, and sugar. It was so far the easiest lab I’ve done and it tasted pretty good (except for the chunks of unsweetened cocoa powder…).
First, Ivy, Liam, and Erika went to buy heavy whipping cream and whole milk. I was left to mix the products we had so far. I mixed everything together with Morgan keeping me company. When they came back, we mixed the cream and milk into the mixture and began to heat it. I thought it was kind of weird that we were heating it, but we followed the instructions and in the end it tasted good. We mixed it until it looked alright and shared it with some people in the class. The ice cream was pretty good, but it had gross chunks of cocoa powder still in it and everyone avoided them. It was fairly easy to make, but our whole group wasn't that organized. I believe that the temperature caused the phase changes from a liquid to a solid. The bowl we got out of the freezer was mixing the chocolate-y liquid around, causing it to distribute the cold temperature throughout the bowl. I noticed this because we spilled a little on the side of the bowl and it froze, looking like ice cream. It was pretty sweet (no pun intended haha)! The ice cream tasted good to me, but some people weren't a fan of it... I wish the cocoa chunks were mixed better and didn't go into the mix because they tasted nasty. We should've taken them out before we put it into the mixer. Personally, I feel like I did most of the work because I was the most hands on with it. I was mixing it, while everyone was just watching. I thought working with three people was pretty tough. I wouldn't want to pair up with more than three group mates because there's not enough work for everyone to do. It was just ice cream and fairly easy to do. If I could do this again, I wouldn't do as much work as I did. I felt obligated to do all these things because no one else would. Personally, I would also change the recipe because the cocoa powder was, again, nasty. Next time, I would pick one other person to do it with, instead of three other people. One thing I learned from this lab was that I'm really good working alone because I got a lot of stuff done while my group mates were shopping. I also learned to remember to buy things ahead of time, instead of buying the items last minute. I did an individual experiment with Morgan and Ivy. We proposed the idea of making pop rocks. Homemade pop rocks are a combination of corn syrup, sugar, baking soda, citric acid, flavoring and color and is heated 300 degrees. It was pretty easy to make, but we had some roadblocks along the way.
Throughout the process of making the pop rocks, we were very confused on what temperature the mixture was at because we didn’t know we needed a candy thermometer, but we had a regular thermometer. We were just estimating the temperature because the mixture was boiling and we didn’t want to burn it, so we put it on the wax paper to cool. It was a bad idea to take it out now because it wasn’t even close to 300 degrees. It ended up hardening for a half an hour, but it quickly melted into this laffy taffy mix that was sour, sticky, and no one wanted to eat it. It was hard to rip off into chunks because it was so sticky. We needed to cook it so much longer. It was such a struggle to take the candy off of the cooking utensils because it hardens and sticks to the cold. It was a pain to eat the candy too. We put WAY too much citric acid and it was really sour. I couldn’t even put a little chunk in my mouth for too long. It actually tasted really good once you got over the sourness, but it took a while to get over the taste. Personally, I thought it was going to work out and be like actual pop rocks. We later learned that you need really high tech equipment and to cook the candy at 600 degrees. Looks like my childhood dream of being a candy maker has been crushed. I really liked working with Morgan and Ivy because they're my friends and friends tend to work really well together. We had no conflicts and we were having a lot of fun trying to figure out how to do this. Our group was really chill about this lab and we were just trying to see if we could actually pull it off. Moving forward, I don’t think I will ever be making candy ever again because you had to make very little mistakes or else it tasted kinda funky. We ended up throwing the mess away, so the only takeaway I have is to put less citric acid than there needs to be and to be patient! Although it was really fun, it was really hard because you had to give it constant attention like it was a child (lol). Overall, it was a really good experience and I found a big weakness of cooking candy. #thestruggleisreal After Morgan and I created our compressed air rocket, Andrew gave us a model rocket with instructions and we went from there. The rocket making process was guided and we followed most of the instructions. We may have skipped one because we didn't see that step, but our rocket turned out the same, even if we did follow that instruction. Doing the rocket was a really fun experience and it's cool to be the first ones to do something. I thought that it was going to take a class period, but it took longer because of the glue not drying fast enough.
Today, we did the atom lab and created hydrogen. Before we did the actual lab, we learned about atoms and how they apply to the elements. An atom is the smallest unit of an element. They are made from subatomic particles called protons (positive), electrons (negative), and neutrons (neutral). The protons and neutrons are in the nucleus, while the electrons orbit them. We can tell what the atoms looks like for an element by looking at its atomic number and mass. The atomic number is the number of protons and electrons, whereas to get the neutrons, you look at the atomic mass subtracted by the number of protons. This experiment of creating hydrogen was to learn how to combine atoms and it surely ended with a boom!
When we did the experiment, we had a few strips of magnesium, a beaker with 150 mL, 20 grams of citric acid, and a balloon. First, we curled the strips or broke it into little pieces, so that we could put them into the flasks. Then, we poured the citric acid into the flask with a funnel and prepare to take pictures of videos. We poured the water in and quickly put the balloon over the flask, so the hydrogen wouldn't escape and we would have a bigger balloon. It took a while for the magnesium, water, and citric acid to react and we got really impatient. When the other tables started to tie their balloons, we had Andrew help us. We played with the balloons for a while, but we ended up making water by releasing energy with fire, creating a loud boom. I noticed the balloon slowly float up, not as fast as a helium balloon would. It was fun to play with it not floating away every 2 seconds. I also noticed the flask get warm when we combined the water, citric acid, and magnesium. That was because energy being created and a liquid was turning into a gas (#throwback to phase changes). Looking back at the experiment, I wish I was a bit more hands on, but I had 6 other people at my table, so our time was limited. Not everyone got to contribute, so it was hard to help out. Overall, the lab was extremely enjoyable and amusing. I learned that hydrogen makes balloons slowly float, whereas a balloon filled with helium would go up vey quickly. Another takeaway would be that you have to be patient in chemistry sometimes. I found myself wanting to just tie the balloon already like the other groups, but our mixture at the bottom was still reacting and we just let it sit for a little longer. It took a while for the magnesium to dissolve and it was kind of irritating because some of the other groups were already done. I wish I had patience sometimes... During the down time Morgan and I had, we decided to help Ivy when she was left to do a lab by herself. She seemed lonely and somewhat stressed because 2 of her partners weren't there. Morgan and I were launching our rocket later in the day, so we decided to help Ivy. The lab she was doing was making bath bombs which fizzes and makes the water turn a certain color and gives off essential oils. They're basically like bubble baths, but without the bubbles. First, we helped measure and mix the solution, making it soft enough to create a ball and not crumbling. Then, we put them into the tennis ball molds, which Morgan and I cut with Erika. They were really hard to mold because we weren't sure how to take them out of the tennis balls without damaging the shape. During the process, Ivy taught us about the chemistry behind bath bombs because it's really popular nowadays. The reason bombs fizz because they release CO2 which is a chemical reaction that occurs when the citric acid comes in contact with water. Since the citric acid is an acid, and the baking soda is a base, the bath bomb is neutral. However, once it hits the water it unbalances it. The bath bomb then dissolves, releasing the essential oils and colors. So, Morgan and I have finally finished our compressed air rocket building today! We launched "Rocket Around The Christmas Tree 2.0" and it worked out better than the original "RATCT". First, we launched it and it didn't go as high because there wasn't as much compressed air. After the first launch, we set the pressure for 100 and it went so high and our rocket managed to not destroy at all (didn't even leave a scratch!). This went way more differently because paper mached it, instead of just using regular printer paper. It was more sturdy and durable. Everything seemed to work, but it was kind of weird when the inside layer of printer paper was shedding inside out. I don't really know what caused that either... Although it was weird, it didn't affect our launch at all. One thing I learned was to always ask others for opinions. For example, I would talk to Zion or Carlos about what they were going to do with their rocket and bounce ideas off of them. I ended up not really listening to their suggestions, but it was good to see what ohers felt was the best. Finally, I learned to always make things more durable than they need to be because they will destroy and blow up, just like your dreams. :( R.I.P. Rocket Around The Christmas Tree Launch 1: Launch 2: Today, we've painted "Rocket Around The Christmas Tree 2.0" with acrylic paint we got from Brain Delgado. It wasn't as exciting today because all we did was paint, but tomorrow we're actually launching the rockets. I'm excited because maybe this one will actually go up into the sky (R.I.P. Rocket Around The Christmas Tree) and not rip!
Today, I finished two worksheets. First, I did the Measurement Worksheet because it had things we had already done. It was pretty easy because we had recently gone over all of them and it was still fresh in my head.
This past weekend, I worked on the Dimensional Analysis Worksheet. It was honestly kind of hard to do, but I remember doing it last year or a year in the past. It was a good refresher, but I was so confused on the last two questions.
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May 2015
CarminaHi! This is my chemistry blog for the second semester of the 10th grade. Categories |