Saturday, February 7, 2009

A fun and cheap activity with the kids.

If you're looking for a fun, cheap and easy activity with the kids, try mixing corn starch and water to make a non-newtonian fluid called oobleck.

This past Friday night, Viv and I thought we'd give it a try.

For those of you that don't know. A non-newtonian fluid is a fluid whose viscosity is not a single constant value, meaning that the relation between sheer stress and strain rate in non-linear.

HUH?!?!

Basically, in regards to our activity, our fluid acted like a solid when struck or abrupt force was applied. When left alone or little force was given it acted as a liquid. Check out this wiki entry if you're interested in more information.

Just in case any parents are interested in trying this, just know this:

  • it's definitely a fun and easy activity to do at home,
  • It's non-toxic,
  • can be very messy, and
  • skip the food coloring. Viv and Pxian's hands will be green for the next week.

The recipe we used was from this blog.

Here's the video from our experience.

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