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.

Learn about inertia and Newton’s First Law of Motion.

Equipment needed:

One raw egg (or more, if you’re clumsy!)

One hard-boiled egg

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

This experiment is often described as “how to tell a raw egg from a hard-boiled egg without breaking them”. You simply spin both eggs on a flat surface: The egg that spins smoothly is the hard-boiled egg. The egg that wobbles as it spins is the raw egg.

What’s happening here? The hard-boiled egg spins smoothly and quickly because the egg inside is solid. The raw egg wobbles as it spins because the egg inside is liquid. As the egg is spinning, the liquid inside sloshes around, and affects the egg’s spin. Why does this affect the egg’s spin? It’s because of Newton’s First Law of Motion. This law states: “An object in motion remains in motion, unless acted upon by an external force.” Put more simply, Newton’s First Law says, “if something is moving, it’ll keep moving unless something else stops it”.

Here we have our example of Newton’s First Law of Motion, the raw egg. Try this: give the raw egg a good spin. As it spins, stop the egg by quickly putting your finger on the top of the egg. Then just as quickly, remove your finger. This action should be fast, perhaps half a second at most. When you remove your finger, you’ll see the stopped egg begin spinning again!

The egg keeps spinning after we stop it because the liquid egg inside remains in motion. The shell of the egg was stopped by our finger, but the inside keeps on going.

Within seconds, the raw egg will stop spinning. This is because of many factors: The friction between the table and egg will slow the egg and eventually stop it. Though the liquid inside the egg keeps moving, it too slows down and stops because the hard shell contains the liquid and eventually prevents it from moving.

Learn about friction – use a pencil to pick up thousands of grains of rice. (And no, this won’t take hundreds of years.)

Equipment needed:

A non-breakable bottle (a 20-ounce pop bottle works fine)

A pencil (it should be at or near full-size)

Rice (you’ll need almost a pound for a 20-ounce pop bottle)

A funnel

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Use the funnel to pour the rice into the pop bottle. Leave a few inches of space at the top.

Insert the pencil into the bottle’s hole, and start stabbing!

After a few stabs, the rice will settle, and you’ll feel the pencil getting stuck in the rice as you try to pull it out.

It will take some practice and experimentation as to what type of stabs work best. (Quick stabs work well.) What you’re trying to do is to get the pencil “stuck” in the rice. If you get it stuck just right, you can carefully lift the pencil, as well as the entire bottle of rice!

This experiment teaches about friction. Friction is the resistance you feel when one object is moved against another. When you’re walking outside on a snowy day, you might step on ice and slip. The ice is slippery because there is a low amount of friction between your feet and the ice. But if you sprinkle sand on the ice, you can walk without slipping – the sand increases the friction to make walking safer.

When you stab the pencil into the rice and it “sticks”, the rice is packed against other grains of rice, with are all contained by the bottle. The friction between the rice and the pencil is strong enough to hold the pencil in place when you lift the bottle with it.