Make your own superball!
How about a little Saturday fun? Park? Ice cream? Make a superball? Huh? Yeah! Yesterday the kids and I did the park thing (Saturday is fun here on Island and it’s a holiday weekend to boot!). Before heading home T wanted to check out the toystore … okay, sure. First thing I saw was a tub of giant sidewalk chalk. Done. Later, after checking out trains, cars, knights, dragons, etc T and I were at the table fully of those little toys great for b-day party loot bags. And I saw them. Little kits for $0.50 to make your own superball! OMG! A quick scan of the directions (one min in water, three min to set and done), made this a do-able thing for the afternoon.
I picked up two packs … supposedly each makes two balls, but really it only makes one. Here’s how it works. You have a little ball mold you snap together (these aren’t the highest quality things, but they worked) and the powder to fill it with. Filling, well, yeah is a tad massy. Not for the little kids for sure.
Next step is really easy. Dunk it for a minute in water. The picture at the right is A’s hand dunking her mold in. Take it out, wait three minutes and …
You have a slightly sticky ball that still needs to dry a bit before playing.
As you can see … they work great!
Science-wise what’s going on here? You start with a dry powdery-crystaline powder, you dunk it in water, and it reacts and … boing! The crystals react and absorb the water, dissolve a bit and expand. The dissolution and expansion is was makes the ball shape. If the stuff didn’t expand it wouldn’t press against the sides of the mold to make the ball. If it didn’t dissolve, it wouldn’t glom together to make it stay a ball. The substance itself isn’t the traditional superball material, but it still bounces.
If you can find these in your local store pick some up for a rainy, or sunny, day. I wish my store had more than just orange … but hey … for $1 … gotta love it.
Tags: superball, make at home, science fun
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