Not your usual experiment, this is a book: “The League of Scientists” is a young adult fiction book by Andy Kaiser (the creator of Digital Bits Science Lab).

Equipment needed:

The League of Scientists is available here: http://www.LeagueOfScientists.com

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

The League of Scientists is a group of smart kids who love science. They use their knowledge and critical thinking skills to solve seemingly-supernatural mysteries.

One of the components of the book is the mystery aspect, and not just the “main” mystery. In most chapters, there is a puzzle. The solution to the puzzle involves the application of science or critical thinking. The book is intended to give science education (and scientific applications – something you don’t always get from such fiction) while still giving kids a good story and characters.

This “experiment” is a little different than usual. We’ll take a break from the usual Science Lab experiment to give a quick review of Elementeo, a card game that can be used as an educational tool to introduce basic chemistry concepts. It’s one of those rare games with fun gameplay as well as education.

Equipment needed:

An Elementeo board game, available at http://www.elementeo.com

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

In addition to the comprehensive instruction book, the game contents are what you see here:

As the box says, Elementeo is intended for “Ages 9-99″. It actually works for children even younger, as long as they understand certain basic game-playing aspects. It’s intended for 2-6 players.

The skill level required is also adjustable: there are 5 different game variants. If you want to play the more difficult versions, those versions add complexity to the more simple games.

The core game, a part of each variant, is simple: each team (or each player) has a certain number of “electrons”. Your goal is to bring your opponent’s electron count to zero. The game variants and difficulty give you different ways of doing that. The cards themselves represent mystical, mythical creatures andtechniques fighting it out on a battlefield.

This is primarily a card-playing game, like the collectible card games for “Magic: The Gathering” or “Pokemon“. However, Elementeo isn’t collectable – you’re given everything you need to play all variants of the game.

The cards look like this:

As you read the text on the cards, you’ll see that some is “flavor text” – something funny or interesting to read about the card in question. But the rest of the cards’ contents is information. Some of this information is used to play the game. Some is information about the element or compound in question.

For those who don’t know chemistry, the Elementeo card game educates - it describes basic chemistry concepts from mixing elements to make compounds, to the fun of medieval alchemy and nuclear fusion. (Alchemy and fusion are the themes of the two most difficult game variants.)

For those who know chemistry, you’ll find the Elementeo card game pays exacting and interesting attention to detail. Examine the two cards pictured above. In the lower-left of each card, you’ll see a symbol representing that card’s “power”. Black rods joining the circles indicate a positive oxidation state, and white rods indicate a black oxidation state. There is little or no gameplay reason to have this information on the card. This is an indicator of the attention to detail and love of designing the game by Elementeo’s creator, Anshul Samar. He went out of his way to go beyond the gameplay and make the game interesting, going beyond the rulebook. This gives Elementeo additional enjoyment, education, and repeat playability.

As the game manual says, Elementeo is not meant to replace chemistry lessons or teaching materials, but hopefully will suppliment them in a fun way. At a meta-level, Elementeo also represents chemistry itself: it successfully combines the gameplay elements of education and fun. This compound is very satisfying.

This experiment shows the concept of energy transfer, how kinetic energy can be transferred from one object to another. While a “drum” and “drum sticks” are required below, this experiment can actually be done with any drum-like and drumstick-like objects. A big inverted tupperware container and two big wooden spoons, for example, will work fine.

Equipment needed:

A drum

Two drumsticks

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Use the drumsticks and whack the drum a few times to get a feel for the sound and amount of force needed to get a good drum noise.

Next take both drumsticks, and hit them together. Listen to what kind of sound it makes when one drumstick hits the other one.

Then hold one drumstick in each hand. Place one drumstick on the surface of the drum. Hold the other stick above the drum:

Keeping the end of the lower drumstick on the drum surface, bring the upper drumstick down and strike the center of the lower drumstick.

What happens? It sounds like you’ve just hit the drum, even though you’ve only hit one drumstick with another!

This experiment is an example of the transfer of kineitc energy. When the upper drumstick hits the lower drumstick, the energy from that hit moves from one drumstick to the other. This happens because the sticks themselves are touching. (Kinetic energy moves easily through small solid objects like the drumsticks.) But the lower stick is also touching the drum. So when the upper stick hits the bottom stick, the energy keeps moving: It flows from one drumstick into the next, then from the second drumstick into the drum.

When heated, air will expand. When cooled, air will compress. Hot air takes up more space than cold air, as this experiment demonstrates.

Equipment needed:

A balloon

A plastic soda bottle (a 2-liter will work well)

Duct tape

A soup pot

A stove

Water

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Pour some water into the bottle. Three inches or so will be plenty.

Pull the ballon over the mouth of the bottle. The balloon should be deflated at this point. Wrap a strip of duct tape around the balloon-bottle connection, to make sure the seal is close to airtight.

Fill the soup pot with water. An inch or so will be plenty.

Put the bottle in the soup pot. Put the pot on the stove.

Turn on the stove. You should have something that looks like this:

Wait for the water in the pot to heat up. As it does, the water in the bottle will heat, too. The balloon will eventually inflate:

What’s happening? This science experiment demonstrates how air, when heated, will expand. It expands because air molecules move around a lot more when warmed up. Since they’re moving around more, they bounce around and off each other, and take up more room. We see this as the balloon expands.

To see the opposite of this effect, take the bottle-balloon invention off of the stove. Place it in a container full of ice, or stand it up in a freezer. The balloon will shrink back down and deflate, and the bottle itself might compress inward as the air gets colder!

Another question that people may have is, “why doesn’t the plastic bottle melt on the stove?” Here’s an experiment that shows why the bottle won’t melt, because the water conducts the heat away from the bottle.

This experiment shows the concept of energy transfer, how kinetic energy can be transferred from one object to another. It also demonstrates a basic concept of Einstein’s E=mc² equation, about mass-energy equivalence.

Equipment needed:

A basketball

A tennis ball

A superball (or any very small, light, solid rubber ball)

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Go outside with all your balls, and find some solid, hard ground, like a driveway or playground.

Drop the basketball. Do the same with the tennis ball and superball. Watch how high they bounce.

Now, take the basketball and the superball. Place the superball on top of the basketball. Making sure the balls are still touching, drop them on the pavement. The balls will hopefully hit the ground while still touching. And when they hit, watch the bounce! The smaller ball will fly up a lot higher than usual, and the basketball won’t bounce as high.

This Science Lab experiment shows us how kinetic energy can be transferred from one object (the basketball) to another (the smaller ball). During the drop and pavement bounce, the basketball’s energy is transferred to the smaller ball: the smaller ball flies high, and the basketball – with less energy now – doesn’t bounce as high.

This also is a good example of “mass-energy equivalence“. Einstein’s E=mc² equation tells us that the amount of energy something has is related to its mass. The basketball is more massive than the smaller balls, so it has more energy to transfer to those balls. This is why they fly up in the air much higher – during the ground bounce, the littler ball just got handed a lot more energy, far more than it gets when bouncing on its own.

This is an experiment that shows the concept of heat being energy.

Equipment needed:

Hot water

Cold water

Two identical glasses

Liquid food coloring

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

As water gets warmer, water molecules move around faster and faster. We can’t see a molecule without help, of course, but we can still see the effects of hot and cold water molecules.

Fill your glasses. One should have hot water in it, the other cold water. Pick a color of food coloring.

Put three drops of food coloring in each glass.

Wait, and watch what happens.

You can tell from the food coloring which glass is holding the hot water, and which is holding the cold. The cold water contains less energy – the water molecules are moving slower, and therefore the coloring mixes slower.

The hot water’s molecules are moving faster – the water contains more heat, and therefore more energy. So the food coloring mixes faster.