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.

Equipment needed:

A shoebox

Black duct tape or black paint

A tape measure

Wax paper

Scissors

A heavy blanket

Rubber bands (optional)

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

To begin with a picture, here’s the finished pinhole camera:

Granted, this isn’t a true pinhole camera. It’s more of a pinhole viewer, or a pinhole camera without any film. With a small modification, you could convert this viewer into a film-based pinhole camera. But for the purposes of this science lab, this pinhole viewer is more fun to use for smaller children, and effectively demonstrates how the eye works, without bringing in the complexity of film and development.

Take your shoebox and make the inside of the lid and box black. Paint it, or use a wide, black tape. You’ll see that due to running out of tape halfway through, I used both techniques in my shoebox. The black color prevents light from bouncing around inside the box, which would interfere with our pictures.

Put the lid on the box. Tape the top on, or put a rubber band around it – we want it in place for the rest of the setup and usage.

Use the scissors to twist out a small hole in the center of one end. See the photo above for detail – this is a small half-inch hole. Don’t make it any bigger.

Now to the other end of the shoebox: we need to make a viewfinder. It’s just a piece of wax paper taped in place over a two-inch by two-and-a-half-inch-wide square. Cut out the square, then tape the wax paper over it. Try to get the wax paper to be as smooth as possible. Wrinkles or ripples aren’t a big problem, but the more you have the more they’ll interfere with your images.

And that’s it – we’re finished, and our pinhole camera is ready. As you use the camera with the directions below, keep two things in mind:

1) The camera works best when you aim at a brightly-lit object. For example, things under full sunlight, or other things illuminated by a bright light bulb.

2) In order to be able to see the image displayed on the wax paper, you need to block out any ambient light: drape an opaque blanket over your head and the camera. That should keep things dark enough to see the light projected on the viewfinder. The majority of light hitting your eyeballs should be what’s coming out of the pinhole camera.

To use the pinhole camera, you need to point the small hole at one end at whatever you want to view. Hold the camera so it’s about a foot away from your face – you may have to move the camera towards and away from your face until you see an image appear on the wax paper. 

As you see the images in the pinhole camera, you’ll see something interesting: the images appear upside down and backward!

Here’s a photo of what I saw during my test:

It’s a little small, as it should be – this was my attempt at taking a picture of the wax paper with a digital camera held at viewing distance.

However, see what happens when we zoom in the picture and flip it upside down:

Still doesn’t make much sense? Perhaps not, but here’s a photo of the actual scene the pinhole camera was looking at:

Seeing the original scene, the pinhole camera version should now make sense. It’s blurred from a combination of the camera having no focus, and the wax paper itself messing with the image quality, but it’s still a snowman standing next to a swingset.

What’s happening here?

Light enters the small hole in our pinhole camera. The small hole only allows a little bit of light to enter, and the light that does enter is projected on the wax paper upside down.

A pinhole camera is a great example of how our eye works: the “small hole” in our eye is the iris. Light enters the iris and is projected on to the back of the eye, the retina. The retina is just like the wax paper. Everything you see, including the words you’re reading right now, is projected upside-down on the back of your eye! The brain takes this signal from the retina and flips it “right side up”.

The eye itself is a pretty remarkable organ, but the basics of photography and sight are pretty simple.

How does a color TV show colors? How does a computer monitor show colors? Use a hand magnifier to see how a computer or color TV displays such a wide range of colors.

Equipment needed:

A good hand magnifier. A standard low-power magnifying glass will work, although, like other optics, you get what you pay for. A nice Hastings Triplet Magnifier will cost more, but between the 10X magnification and the clear, distortion-free image I think it’s worth it if you plan to use it much.

A color display. Like the one you are probably using right now to read this. Although, if you only have a low-power magnifier, it will be easier to see how it works if you use a color television instead of a computer display.

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Look at the test pattern picture below with your magnifier. (Click on the photo to view the full-size version.)

You can also turn on your TV to something that shows different colors and look at that.

What you will see is that, close up, the screen really only shows three colors: tiny rectangles of red, green, and blue. The rectangles are so small that, from a distance, they all blur together and your eye mixes the colors.

To make different colors, the display makes the rectangles brighter and dimmer. If you look at the test pattern picture, you can see that each color is different brightnesses of the colored rectangles.

If you’ve ever wanted to make your own rainbow, it’s not difficult with a little experimentation.

Equipment Needed:

A flashlight

A large, wide glass (it should be as wide or wider than the head of your flashlight)

Water

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

In this experiment, we refract light from our flashlight through water. The light, when refracted in the right way, will separate the light into its component colors. The name “Roy G. Biv” is an easy to remember name. It’s also an acronym: ROYGBIV are the first letters of all the colors in a rainbow. The colors in a rainbow are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

A rainbow is also an example of additive color mixing. Additive color mixing occurs when you mix together different colors of light. The light coming from the flashlight is our combination of all colors – it appears white. After shining it through our water, the water separates the white light into the colors that make it up.

To make a rainbow, I used a coffee pot filled with water. Then I placed it on the floor, and shone a flashlight through it, with the refracted light landing on a nearby wall:

Next, you’ll have to play with the flashlight and the water. Move them around. Angle them differently. Move them closer to or away from the wall. The light pattern on the wall will change, and eventually, if you work it right, you’ll see a rainbow at the edges of the light pattern. While the setup you see pictured above worked pretty well, the rainbow picture below was taken by shining the flashlight from underneath the coffee pot, shining the light pattern on the ceiling:

Here’s a close-up of the rainbow picture. Look close, and say hello to Mr. Roy G. Biv!

Refraction happens when when light is bent as it moves. Instead of going in a straight line, it appears to turn, curve or bend.

Equipment Needed:

A flashlight

A glass (it should be as wide or wider than the head of your flashlight)

Water

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

To make light refract, you need to pass it through two different substances. In this example, the two substances are air and water. Fill up a glass of water. Place a flashlight flat on a table, so that the light is pointed straight through the center of the glass. Turn on the flashlight, turn out the lights, and you’ll see light passing straight through the glass, like this:

Next, simply roll the flashlight. Don’t actually turn it, just move the entire flashlight up and down in relation to the glass. Even though the light is still coming straight out of the flashlight, the light will be refracted (bent) as it moves through the water in the glass. The refractive qualities of the water (and the shape of the water within the glass) will bend the light as you see in the picture below:

Looking at this with better lighting, examine the red line in the picture below. That indicates the path the light takes as it’s refracted. Again, this is caused by the water refracting the light, and the position of the flashlight in relation to the glass:

You’ve probably seen this happen at a restaurant. You’re sipping your drink through a straw. You glance at your glass at just the right angle, and the straw looks “broken”. Let’s take a closer look at what’s happening.

Equipment Needed:

A straw (a stick, a pencil, a chopstick, or any other straight object will work fine)

A tall glass

Water

The Digital Bits Science Lab Experiment:

Fill the glass halfway with water. Put the straw in it. If you place the straw at just the right angle, and view the glass from just the right angle, the straw will appear “broken”:

What’s happening here?

This experiment demonstrates the concept of refraction. Refraction happens when light is bent – it doesn’t always travel in a straight line. The water in the glass bends light as you’re looking at it. So part of the straw looks like it’s in a different place.

This strange appearance of the straw is because of what is called the “refractive index”. The refractive index is the measurement of slowdown light (and other waveform energy) encounters when in a particular substance. The refractive index of water is different than the refractive index of air. Light behaves differently when in water versus air. To us, this simply looks like our straw is bent or broken.