January 19, 2014

Building an organic battery

After about 2 months of prep and investigation and Youtube watching and Mythbusters Egyptian Battery episode watching and article reading, today C-man got to actually put together his fruit battery test for his 3rd grade science project.

He picked 4 fruits and 4 vegetables, learned about the energy equation, and drew out a table to record the data. One zinc nail and one copper nail and a volt meter to register it. Each test was done for 1 minute to be extra scientific, with three tests of each fruit or vegetable and the averages calculated. There was a AA battery test for control too. (I had to laugh at all the advice on how to do this after I posted we were doing a Fruit Battery on Facebook. I didn't want to be rude, but in my head was giggling, wanting to say, "You're going to have to trust me. Beerman's got this one!")

I sure hope Beerman gets an A.

My job was to photograph the process for the board to display it all. (Because apparently that's where I step in for this project!)

3rd grade sure can be tough.

(All joking aside, C-man now knows about Power = Volts x Amps, more about batteries, how to average numbers and why you'd look for an average. Pretty big concepts for an 8 year old!)

1 comment:

Mary Z said...

Ah, yes - still doing the old "making power with a potato thing". Guess some things never change. But at least something that can be done with minimal expense.