Recommended for high school students! A collection of easy one-day science project ideas

Surface tension experiment

[Summer Vacation Science Project] Let's Make a One-Yen Coin Float! A Surface Tension Experiment

Let’s learn about surface tension through an experiment.

First, fill a glass with water and float a one-yen coin on it.

Be careful—if you don’t place it slowly, it will sink.

Once the coin is floating, try adding some detergent to the water.

Did the coin sink? A one-yen coin can float because water molecules attract each other, and surface tension prevents the water from spreading over the coin.

When you add detergent and it sinks, it’s because the surfactant weakens the surface tension.

Floating many one-yen coins and watching them all sink at once is quite a sight!

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sasashina

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Galileo thermometer

Still in time! A Galileo thermometer summer vacation science project you can make in one day

A Galileo thermometer is a glass instrument that floats or sinks depending on temperature, and it has recently become popular as interior decor.

How about trying to make your own Galileo thermometer to study its principles? When making this thermometer, place glass vessels containing beads into water kept at a constant temperature and adjust how they float.

It’s complete when you include several glass vessels that float just right at different temperatures.

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Saitō Ayumu

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Let’s make lightning

[Weather Independent Research] Let's Make Lightning

It’s a curious experiment that makes you feel as if you’ve become a god—creating lightning.

Attach the lead wires from a piezoelectric element, the kind used in lighters, to the base of an incandescent bulb with cellophane tape.

Once attached, put on rubber gloves, darken the room, and press the piezoelectric element.

You’ll see tiny lightning! If you add an explanation of how lightning is generated along with the experiment, your independent research project will be done in no time.

While generating the lightning, be careful not to touch the metal part of the bulb.

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SAKI

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five-link pendulum

Newton’s cradle

This device was created to demonstrate the law of conservation of momentum and the law of conservation of mechanical energy in the real world.

Using this device, the laws governing collisions between two objects were verified in the 17th century by the French physicist Edme Mariotte.

You can observe repeated swinging motion under the influence of gravity.

Various types of “motions” can be produced, but it is essential to clearly describe the regularities governing such motion.

When the five balls of this device are at rest, if you pull one ball at an end outward along the straight line on which the five balls are aligned and release it, the same number of balls as the one you pulled will undergo a symmetric, identical motion on the opposite side.

This is the basic motion.

We will explain how only such symmetric motions satisfy the principle that both momentum and kinetic energy remain the same, revealing the mechanism behind this phenomenon.

pulsejet engine

Homemade Pulse Jet Engine [Experiment Edition]

Let’s try making a handmade jet engine—a pulsejet engine.

You might hesitate, thinking building an engine sounds difficult, but this one is actually very simple.

And if it works, you’ll see a beautiful flame.

First, prepare an empty bottle and drill a hole in the cap.

Then pour in some denatured alcohol as fuel and simply light it inside.

The size of the hole can cause failures, so adjust the hole size as you experiment.

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utatane

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supercooled water

[Independent Research] Water Freezes in an Instant!! Supercooled Water Experiment

Here’s a summer break science project for high school students: “Supercooled Water.” Supercooling refers to a state in which a substance remains unchanged even below the temperature at which it should normally change phase.

In this case, it means the water stays liquid even at freezing temperatures.

Here’s how to do it: Fill a plastic bottle with water, wrap it in an insulated bag, and chill it in the freezer for 4 hours.

The water in the bottle will become supercooled.

Then, when you pour the water from the bottle onto a plate or similar surface, it will start freezing immediately right before your eyes!

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kyc

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steam engine

Summer Independent Research: “The World’s Easiest Steam Engine” [Steam Engine] [Research]

Let’s try making a steam engine—the mechanism that powers a steam locomotive! Attach an aluminum pipe, bent into a coil shape, to a cork coaster and fill the pipe with water.

Float it in a bowl filled with water, place a fuel tablet or a candle on it, and you’re ready.

Once you light the fuel tablet or candle, it will start moving on its own! The water inside the aluminum pipe is heated by the flame and is expelled along with steam.

Then water is drawn back in, heated again, and expelled—this cycle repeats, making it work as a steam engine.

Be careful when handling fire, and give it a try!

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SAKI

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