Comment Re:So help fight it with your family!!!! (Score 1) 627
If you already have access to dry ice, try putting a mixture of dish washing soap and water in the bottom of a big graduated cylinder (or a 2L coke bottle with the top cut off...or maybe even not cut off, I haven't tried) and add dry ice. Try it and see what happens.
If you can get the equipment, making ice cream with liquid nitrogen can be fun, too. I was able to buy (and subsequently return...) a suitable dewar flask and cryogenic gloves from Fisher Scientific, and LN2 can be procured from many local suppliers (e.g., AirGas) though it may require some creative story-telling.
When I was in high school I managed to procure some elemental sodium from eBay and elemental potassium from somewhere else that I now forget. To detonate it safely, I built a simple rig using a 3ft segment of PVC pipe aimed down at a bucket of water. Then I stole a bunch of those little ketchup cups from Wendy's, poked a bunch of holes in the bottom and two in the sides to tie a piece of string through, filled them up with "diced" sodium, and put them (one at a time) in the pipe, using the string to keep them from falling. When you cut the string (which you could do from 10+ feet away), the ketchup cups of sodium would fall down the pipe into the bucket and explode. I got some serious (think eight foot high) flames from that. You might save that for when they're older, though. ;)
If you can get the equipment, making ice cream with liquid nitrogen can be fun, too. I was able to buy (and subsequently return...) a suitable dewar flask and cryogenic gloves from Fisher Scientific, and LN2 can be procured from many local suppliers (e.g., AirGas) though it may require some creative story-telling.
When I was in high school I managed to procure some elemental sodium from eBay and elemental potassium from somewhere else that I now forget. To detonate it safely, I built a simple rig using a 3ft segment of PVC pipe aimed down at a bucket of water. Then I stole a bunch of those little ketchup cups from Wendy's, poked a bunch of holes in the bottom and two in the sides to tie a piece of string through, filled them up with "diced" sodium, and put them (one at a time) in the pipe, using the string to keep them from falling. When you cut the string (which you could do from 10+ feet away), the ketchup cups of sodium would fall down the pipe into the bucket and explode. I got some serious (think eight foot high) flames from that. You might save that for when they're older, though.
