Week 8: Materials and precautions

(Please note that the experiement may be changed as further testing is performed)

Materials/equipment

-5 Various bottled soft drinks, 1.25L each.

(Must include a home brand such as No Frills)

-Pack of balloons (at least 2 for each bottle of soft drink)

-Safety goggles

-Flexible measuring tape

-Duct tape

-Heavy black marker

-Ruler

Safety precautions

-Keep a safe distance away from the balloon as it is inflating; it may explode.

-Furthermore, wear safety goggles as soft drinks will cause severe irritation to eyes.

-Please take care to keep movement of the soft drink bottles to a minimum (especially during transport), to prevent gas building up inside.

The general idea of this experiment is to wrap a balloon over the lid of a soft drink bottle, open it while the balloon is deflated, and then measure the balloon after it has inflated.

Possible flaws:

-There is not enough gas inside the bottles to inflate the balloon enough to measure.

-There is too much gas inside the bottles, leading to leakage or explosion.

-The balloons will be too small to properly wrap over the lids and/or to open the lids through it.

Week 7: Some research & experiment ideas

http://www.australianbeverages.org/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=ASP0002/ccms.r?PageId=10053

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-carbonated-beverage.htm

Overview of Soft Drinks:

"Soft drinks are carbonated water, flavoured and sweetened with either sugar or sweetener."

Carbonation (charging with carbon dioxide gas) of the drinks are what creates the bubbles and fizziness in taste.

"Acids such as citric and phosphoric acids, add a refreshing tartness or bite and help preserve the quality of a soft drink."

This could possibly be another factor to the fizziness in soft drinks.

Experiment ideas:

-"Coke and Mentos" (measure the amount of liquid lost when Mentos is placed in a drink)

-Observation of bubble loss (too many bubbles to count!)

-Taste tests (unreliable as it may be influenced by opinions)

Week 6: Hypothesis made

Hypothesis: I believe that the independent variable, that is, the type of soft drink, will have an effect on the dependent variable, that is, the rate of bubble retention. Specifically, that the home-brand soft drinks such as No-Frills will lose carbonation faster than regular brands.

Week 5: Aim and Purpose chosen

Aim: To compare the rate of bubble retention in different brands and types of soft drink.

Purpose: “Do home-brand soft drinks lose their fizziness faster than other soft drinks?”

I wanted to find out the answer to this question so that in the future, I would purchase the best brands and types soft drinks. The soft drinks which last the longest are considered superior because flat soft drinks are very unpleasant to drink.

Just created this account

Will be blogging about the SRP (student research project) over the next 2 months.