Mr. O! A Video Blog from the Children's Museum of Houston » Fun Facts

Candy Chemistry

Mr.O — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 16:33:09 +0000

Well, it looks like my assistants had a great time trick-or-treating. Alas, they seem to have overindulged in their candy and are suffering the consequences on the floor of the Children’s Museum of Houston. Oh, well, at least I now get plenty of candy on which we can conduct chemistry tests!

Experiment 1 – Solubility - Sure the milk chocolate in the M&Ms melts in your mouth, but that candy shell is what I want to explore! We examine what parts of the outer coating of M&Ms is soluble (can dissolve) in water and what part is insoluble (doesn’t dissolve).

Experiment 2 – Acid Indicator - I am NOT a fan of uber-sour candies, but I know there are those people who love them. But what really makes them so sour? We know the sour in lemons comes from the acid in lemon juice. Could it be an acid that gives sour candies their puckering punch? Learn how to make an indicator solution to find out

Experiment 3 – Thermal Expansion - Have you ever stuck a marshmallow in a microwave and run it for 45 seconds? Try it and see what happens to the air inside the marshmallow as it heats up, then explore the after-effects of the thermal expansion on the marshmallow.

Special thanks to our friends at Region’s Bank for making our O Wow Moments possible!

What’s a Gear to Do?

Mr.O — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 12:00:18 +0000

We have a new component in our How Does It Work? exhibit at the Children’s Museum of Houston – a Gears Table!

Gears are a type of simple machine, basically wheels with “teeth” that interconnect. When gears connect together, they form gear trains. Gear trains are exteremly useful to help you do work – they can either increase the speed of a gear or they can increase the force that the gear is generating, but NEVER both. That’s because you can’t get something for nothing. Gears and in fact all simple machines can help you do work, but there is always a trade off – you either have to do the work over a greater distance or you have to apply a greater force.

In a gear-up train, a larger gears turns a smaller gear. Because the larger gear has a greater circumference, the force applied to the gear is applied over a greater distance, so the smaller gear will turn at a faster speed than the larger gear. The trade-off is that less force is transferred over to the smaller gear. So more speed, but less force. An example of a gear-up train is a bicycle.

In a gear-down train, a smaller gear turns a larger gear. The smaller gear has a smaller circumferece, so the larger gear turns slower than the smaller gear. The trade-off in this case, though, is the force applied to the smaller gear is multiplied. So you get more force, but at a slower speed. An example of this is the gear arrangement in a carousel.

Special thanks to our friends at Region’s Bank for making our O Wow Moments possible!

Such a Leech

Mr.O — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:46:39 +0000

GROSS OUT WARNING – this O Wow Moment episode from the Children’s Museum of Houston contains actual footage of a leech feeding off of its favorite food – blood!

Meet Edward Cullen Leech, or Eddie the Leech for short (that’s right, I went there!). Eddie is one of the stars of our new exhibit ATTACK OF THE BLOODSUCKERS showing now through January 22nd, 2012. In this episode, we discuss the importance of leeches in surgery, how leeches feed (and what that feels like – mostly itchy), what to do if a leech does attach to you, what NOT to do if a leech attaches to you, and how to treat a leech wound.

And yes, that really is my arm and yes that is a real leech.

Now, we don’t feed all our leeches this way. In fact, Eddie won’t dine like this again. If you are interested, you can see our Wowie about Feeding Our Leeches.

Special thanks to our friends at Region’s Bank for making our O Wow Moments possible!

Feeding Our Leeches

Mr.O — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 17:45:04 +0000

GROSS OUT WARNING – this Wowie from the Children’s Museum of Houston contains actual footage of leeches feeding off of their favorite food – blood!

In a recent O Wow Moment episode “Such a Leech” you may have seen me let a leech feed off of my blood. Well, that isn’t how we typically feed them (or will Eddie the Leech be getting any follow-up meals that way). In this Wowie, we show you how we actually go about feeding our leeches.

Musical Card Cacophony

Mr.O — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 15:47:48 +0000

Recently, I purchased one of those cards that played music for my daughters. Being only 2 and 4, they LOVED it – coolest thing ever. And I was a very proud father for having made my girls happy. Briefly. Around the 10,000th playing of the song within the first hour, I was ready to tear out the music in the card (or pour wax in my ears).

But, what part of the card would be the easiest to sabotage to make the music stop? I had to investigate by dissecting the card. Check it out in this O Wow Moment video from the Children’s Museum of Houston!

Special thanks to our friends at Regions Bank whose funding helps make O Wow Moments possible.

Getting It Right…Eventually…

Mr.O — Sun, 15 May 2011 22:55:01 +0000

So this is it. Fifty. The “Big Five-Oh.” What? No! I’m not talking about my age! Seriously, how old do you think I am?!?

If you haven’t been keeping track, this is our fiftieth O Wow Moment episode! And it has been a grand bit of fun with all of our great lab assistants and O Wow Moment kids! Plus all the cool science, technology, engineering, and math activities…

So, as a special treat, we decided to pull back the curtain and give you a glimpse into what it takes to make Mr. O “O Wow Moment” episodes. Or rather, all the stuff we’d rather keep on the metaphorical editing room floor. So enjoy some of our favorite bloopers and outtakes. And look ahead for even more great episodes (and I’m sure some new bloopers…) from the Children’s Museum of Houston.

Reaction Time Action

Mr.O — Fri, 13 May 2011 14:35:00 +0000

On this episode of O Wow Moments, we have a lively debate between two of my lab assistants over who is faster. Normally, we might settle it in a foot race, but I’d rather do something that doesn’t result in them trying to run as fast as possible through a crowded Children’s Museum of Houston.

So, instead, we took a more scientific approach and decided to test their reaction time, or how fast their brain can receive input, process it, and react to it. And we can use gravity to help!

To calculate your reaction time, we have to use a little physics equation to help -

d=½gt²

“d” is the distance the meter stick traveled, “g” is acceleration due to gravity (9.8m/s²) and “t” is time. Now, because we are solving for time and the distance is measured in centimeters instead of meters, we have do to a little manipulation of our equation. So, the actual steps are:

Take the average distance the ruler traveled in centimeters.
Multiply it by 490 (you get this by taking 1/2 of 9.8, then multiplying by 100 to convert it to centimeters)
Then take the square root of that number (because time is squared in the equation)

So how fast are you?

2nd Annual CMH Pi Day Pie Fight

Mr.O — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:12:36 +0000

Pi Day (March 14th – 3/14 – 3.14 – get it?) is a celebration of all things pi. Remember from your geometry class that pi is a numerical ratio of the circumference of a circle (how big around it is) to its diameter (how far across it is). It is always the same – a non-repeating infinite series of numbers that begins 3.14159. It is used in all sorts of calculations and is a pretty indispensible mathematical tool.

So, to celebrate all things pi, the Children’s Museum of Houston hosts an annual Pi Day event, including math games, puzzles, giant paper chains, etc. However, it also happens to be Albert Einstein’s Birthday! And what is a birthday party without pie? (no, not cake…work with me here!)

So, we have started an annual tradition of a pie fight! A glorious spectacle not to be missed that involved 50 Pie Fighters, 55 cans of shaving cream, and over 500 pies! But, just in case you did miss it, enjoy the video of this year’s event! And, if you’d like, here is a link to last year’s Pi Day Pie Fight. Just make sure to come out for next year’s fight!

By the way – the pies are shaving cream pies – not exactly tasty. So, we also do pudding pies afterwards for everyone to enjoy!

***On a side note, a BIG thanks to Regions Bank for sponsoring our “O Wow Moments”!

Science and Art

Mr.O — Sat, 08 May 2010 05:39:17 +0000

I’ve spent the last several days at the Association of Children’s Museums InterActivity 2010 conference in St. Paul, Minnesota. On Thursday night, we had a reception at the Science Museum of Minnesota which had several art pieces that related to science. The image above is a huge series of chimes. These chimes are automated by a computer that tracks earthquakes around the world (remember, the world has about 500,000 earthquakes a year, 100,000 of which can be felt) so that they play sounds based on the location and magnitude of the earthquake. If you are interested in seeing the daily earthquakes, you can check it out at the USGS here.

This image is a sculpture created by artist Randy Walker. He creates intricate webs of strings that, in person, appear to change depending on location and lighting conditions.

This final one is a sculpture by Allen Christian meant to be a take on Rodin’s The Thinker. The “robot” is holding a Jacob’s Ladder, which produces sparks of electricity, meant to symbolize the spark of an idea. The Jacob’s Ladder activates every few minutes, after which the robot sits up and the light above it turns on as a way of showing the full formation of the idea.

Stylus for the iPad?

Mr.O — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 16:30:52 +0000

The Children’s Museum of Houston is exploring how to integrate personal mobile technology into the museum experience. As a part of that, we purchased an iPad to explore its potential. Basically, that means I get to play with an iPad! Oh, and figure out the ways we can use it to interact with our visitors on a whole new level. So keep an eye out for me on the floor in the coming months with our iPad.

All that being said, I’ve done some experimentation with the iPad and was quite surprised the first time I discovered that you cannot use just a plain plastic stylus to write on its screen. When I looked up the specs, I discovered is that the iPad (as well as iPhone, iPod Touch, and many other touch-sensitive technologies) isn’t a real touch screen. It is, in fact, a Capacitive Sensor, meaning that the surface builds up an electrical charge. When you touch it with your finger, some of the charge flows into you and sensors under the glass detect that drop in charge at that location, thereby telling the device where you’ve touched it. So issue #1 is that the plastic is non-conductive so it will not reduce the charge. In fact, even wearing gloves will make it pretty much impossible for the device to detect you.

So what is a person dying to have a stylus to do? Well, you can make an aluminum foil stylus (that will conduct the electricity from the screen to you), but it needs to be pretty big given that the screen is meant to sense things the size of a finger and if you’re not careful you can scratch the glass. Fortunately, the folks at dsLabs have created a DIY stylus using anti-static socks so it is soft and dry, but it does take a little patience to cut and sew it together. Check it out here. And if you need a source for anti-static socks, dsLabs recommend this. And here’s a photo of another one: