Director's Cut: Final E

Director's Cut: Final E

This will be in two parts, specifically pertaining to the experiment and as a whole after this project, because I am lazy and also it makes no sense to spilt reflections that are very much connected. 

1. Experiment

• The very fact that I acquired the use of the weighing scale by literally asking everyone I have ever met, then trucking my stove (and pot...and plates, measuring cylinders...flour...) to their house on the top floor shows that yes, how surprising, persistence is necessary. She was a very nice scale owner.
• I am the kind of person who would download a whole new set of software, in which spreadsheets were merely a part, just because I found those tutorials easier. But that's good, I think OpenOffice can produce better graphs than Excel, even though I've only used them significantly in this project. Developing your own taste and all that.

2. As a whole 

First time using:

• Image-J
• Excel/OpenOffice
• Online Journals
• Sniping tool on desktop (like screen shot, but more controllable)

I guess it's past time to start...Yeah, I can see spreadsheets being very useful in the future.


The method for using water displacement (and the equipment), the concept of density, etc was learnt in physics class, and Google was very helpful in covering the rest.

Part of my bookmark bar...

Trivia/Misc.

Trivia/Misc. 

1. While researching the properties of glutinous rice, I found an article on China's walls. Modern chemical analysis (by western scientists) revealed that they contained glutinous rice dough, whose stickiness was used in ancient times to reinforce the walls. It's really neat that I could link it to vague memories of reading chinese folktales about nian gao (also made of glutinous rice) being used as bricks. Reaching through the generations.:)
2. In the same vein, I didn't realized that much of Laotian rice was glutinous and it was their primary meal. Learnt a lot of esoteric facts from this project.
3. Photos/Video

These are the rest of the photos/videos that I took but aren't incredibly relevant/fit anywhere in the primary posts.

• My thumb drive

• Mixing the dough

Before:

Pot, chopstick and dough flakes

During: 

After: 

Finished dough

Director's Cut: Trial 0

Director's Cut: Trial 0

Date: 4 July 2012

Time: 3pm-5pm
Room temperature: 27°C

Weather: Sunny 

I tried to conduct my (hoped) final experiment today in school and said hopes crashed, burned and ran off to find mummy. There won't be multiple posts of procedures/results/etc because I didn't even collect all the data.

1. There were supposed to be 28 GRBs, each and every one of a different size and shape made, measured, cooked and measured again. If possible, multiple duplicates, but that could come later. Of course it devolved into a mess.
2. I was using unfamiliar equipment in an unfamiliar lab. While the good lighting (which you can see from the photos) and the conveniently placed sink and work bench was much appreciated, unfamiliar is still disorienting.
3. Because I was using school property, there was a time limit and plenty of people watching. It doesn't sound like much, but I swear you get much more stressed about how your GRBs are doing when people are walking by asking if they could eat them.
4.  I got four phone calls, each striking just when I'd settled the last, washed my hands and picked up the dough again. So, very, popular.
5.    The hotplate at school took 40 minutes to boil the water, then it gave up and stayed at 80 °C the moment the GRB were introduced. So, first batch of results nigh unusable-but very attractive-to-fellow-experimenters-anyway-reminders of failure.
6. Thanks to Mr Ali and Mr Ooi, second batch was done on two bunsen burners, but then you had to scramble to keep the water at just the right temperature so that it was boiling, but not boiling over.

7. 

   Fire is hot.

8. 

   Fire is really hot. Also, not succeeding in the not boiling over

9. The electronic weighing scale in the lab was really really good. 0.01g good. Which of course means it took 10 seconds per reading, which was really not good when you had 28 lumps of wallpaper paste sticking to everything, and you have to adjust their weight by pinching off tiny flakes and waiting 10 seconds per flake. Or, watching as the cooked GRB steams on, completely unaware that it's reducing the accuracy of the reading by losing heat every second. Such joy.
10. Amidst this, few photos were taken, 18 GRB's measurements ruined, 1 after cooking volume not taken, and countless people scared. So, what to do better:

• Perhaps, if you know you're the impatient type and have been doing small scale trials all this while, why for the love of science are you doing 28 sets of finicky steps all at once? Split it up next time.
• Accept that that scale is never going to show you .00g and move on. .5g within the target is perfectly fine for everyone who's not you, .05g is a good compromise if you are you.
• Make sure that people actually know you're going to be elbow deep in flour, or shove that phone under the bed and have plausible deniability. 
• Be James Bond and reccee the lab first. Ask about the apparatus, get comfortable with the set-up, never do the final experiment/set off the big bomb where you have never tried before.
• Plan all of these (including a test batch of four GRB that never got used...) and actually follow them.

Big brother is watching... The dye is yellow, by the way.

Director's Cut: Trial 3

Director's Cut: Trial 3

The point of trial 3 was to do a greatly simplified (only 3 GRB, obvious difference in size but same shape, and that shape is easy to make) experiment incorporating the changes in measuring volume. Hopefully it could have revealed that GRB do expand after cooking and previous measurements were just not accurate enough to show that.


In this trial, the density still increased after cooking, but to a maximum of 16+% as compared to trial 2's 30+%. As I was conducting the trials, I've realised that accurate measurements were the most important aspect. 


Most significantly, after looking at my apparatus my teacher said that a spring balance was far too inaccurate for this experiment, so I'm going to have beg, borrow or steal a better one. Honestly, they're much more expensive and the rare people who have them worry about lending them out...

Director's Cut: Trial 2

Director's Cut: Trial 2

The first two trials were done on the same day (last Wednesday in fact), before analysing the data collected, so the changes dealt with physical problems. After analysing, other flaws were revealed in some of the methodology as well.

• Even with an attempt at squeezing out air, placing uncooked GRB inside waterproof bags to keep them from dissolving in the displacement can still allowed for too much air. The plastic bag was too stiff to be compressed by the water. In retrospect, using a large enough sheet of cling wrap such that the opening could be kept above water would be more accurate.
• A preliminary look at the data indicates that the surface area calculations are going to be problematic. There's no way to make (and preserve) perfectly round spheres or circles (which have an added complication of depth) with according to exact measurements. Have thought of something to try for the flat GRB, but have no idea what to do for the round ones.

Edit: Will not make any more round GRB, instead focusing on investigating surface area:volume with less-curved shapes whose surface areas are easier to measure

I'll post this data after I've polished them 

• I overlooked procuring an apron, or at least a portable dry cloth to wipe off residues of dough. Now my tables are very clean, but my pants look like this:

Water and flour.

In other news, I've (finally) had to learn excel. Yay.

Questions after the two trials:

1. Does the temperature of the water affect its density, and therefore whether the GRBs will float in it?
2. Does the ratio of flour:water affect how the GRBs float? (e.g. density)
3. Since GRBs are water soluble, what does this mean for their cooking in water?
4. Does the amount of water in the pot affect how GRBs float?
5. Prelim points at GRBs shrinking, not expanding. How?

Edit: 1: Yes it does. 
Temp (°C)     Density (kg/m3)
+100    958.4
+80     971.8
+60     983.2
+40     992.2
+30     995.6502
+25     997.0479
+22     997.7735
+20     998.2071
+15     999.1026
+10     999.7026
+4     999.9720
0       999.8395
−10     998.117
−20    993.547
−30     983.85

Directors's Cut: Trial 1

Directors's Cut: Trial 1

This...went about as well as could be expected, I guess. Being the first, the no-prior-experience-totally-untested-theory-from-books-only product it was. Basically if you look at the experiment steps you'd be thinking...hey, that emphasis is strange...oh! and this out of the blue apparatus as well, and then you take a look at the results and yup. few balls short of the proverbial ball pit.

Or in other words things went wrong, let me show you why (I think).

• GRB stuck to everything. Every-single-thing-and if-that-thing-didn't-exist-they'll-find-a-way-to-stick-to-it-anyway. No doubt it was dough exhibiting its properties, but still very disruptive to the shape of the balls, so dustings of cornflour are worth possibly decreased consistency of results.
• In a subset of the above, GRB stuck to the strainer used to display and lower them. Unfortunate combination of hot steam and basic properties, will change to bare hands.  

A lot of the dough was left, skewed results severely

• Dots of food colouring in an attempt to reduce the amount of colouring needed rubbed off onto the plate and other GRBs. Returning more traditional method of just mixing colouring into dough.
• Rice dough holds its shape abysmally. Even without multiple weigh-ins and a trip to the displacement can, their shapes flattens between the seconds it took to take a picture for measurements of surface area. Hence: finish as many steps as possible before shaping, and shape more times if necessary. Hopefully the cornflour will help.
•   Water heating at 200°C meant water constantly boiling over. The violent upwards movement of bubbles propelled the GRB upwards as well. Impossible to  discern when they floated naturally with much accuracy, also added (250ml of) water eight times to save the hotplate. So, hotplate at lowest possible setting (120 °C) that's still above boiling point. Future experiments varying amount of heat will just have to have less water, or be incredibly long.