Author's Note: Kiley, Sydney W., and I conducted an experiment about crushing cans, and this is the PHEOC. In addition to the scientific details, I added some of my voice into it to make it more interesting.
Problem:
What is the impact of the amount
of water when you are crushing a can?
Hypothesis:
I think that the more water there is, the more pressure there is, so the
can will become more compressed, because there is more mass, volume, and
weight. That's why at the bottom of the
ocean it's harder to breath and divers can't go down that far.
Experiment:
The more water there is, the greater and more powerful the impact.
Materials:
20 cans
Container full of
water
Bunsen burner
Measuring tubes
Safety goggles
Paper towels
Marker (to label the
cans)
Procedure
To conduct this
experiment properly, we must first measure water in the test tubes, making sure
that they are all different measurements.
Changing the different water measurements will change the results and
make them different. We will use those
different measurements of water to fill the cans. Then, we will heat the can over the Bunsen
burner. When we see steam emerge from the can, we will wait five seconds, then
flip the can over and dip it into the water, with the least amount of spilling
as possible. The water container that we
dip the can into must be 3/4 of the way full.
Once the can compresses, we will have to take the can out of the water
container and refill the container with new water. We will then repeat the steps with different
measures of water for each set of cans for different outcomes.
Variables
CV: Soda cans, Bunsen burner, safety glasses,
container
IV: Amount of water used to put inside the soda
cans before heating
DV: The amount of compression the soda cans
undertook
Observation
setup:
We will use the same measurement of water for the first three
cans, then heat the cans, count to five, and dip it in the water. After the first set is finished, we will take
different measurements of water and see how much the next set compresses. Taking pictures of the cans and measuring the
amount of water that fits in the cans after its compression will help us
collect data and see the amount of compression.
Conclusion: My group wanted to see what the impact
of the amount of water in the can was when you crush it. We hypothesized that the more water that was
in the can, the greater the compression would be. That was proven incorrect while we were
conducting the experiment.
While conducting the
experiment, I noticed that the more water you put in the can before
compression, the less room there is to crush it, so it compresses more when you
have less water inside the can. Also,
the greater the compression is, the less room there is to fill with water
afterwards. When I wrote my hypothesis,
I was thinking more about the water in the container where the can would be
going in. I was not thinking about the
water that was actually inside the can. How silly of me!
I also noticed that the water in the can, the can, and the tongs
get really hot after roasting over the Bunsen burner, and if you spill the
boiling water on yourself or anyone else, it really
hurts. All in all, it's a very fun and easy experiment that you can learn a lot from in a short amount of time.
