What you need:
- Lots of ice cream sticks
- Poster colours
What to do:
1. First off, paint your ice cream sticks in different colours. Make them as colourful as you can. Then, let the colours dry up.
2. When the coloured sticks are dry, start by arranging two of them in an x pattem on a flat table. Make sure you have enough space on the table for a chain of sticks.
3. Place the third stick under the top comer of the first stick which is at the bottom of the X pattern. Keep pressure on the centre of the X as you do this. You can also enlist the help of a friend to keep pressure on each previous X as you work.
4. Now, place the fourth stick over the third. Its lower end goes under the lower comer of the first stick. This makes the second and fourth stick parallel to each other.
5. Continue adding and interlacing stick in this pattern until you have at least 20 sticks.
6. Once you feel you have enough sticks, just let go of the free end of the last stick in the chain.
What happens:
The sticks fly in a colourful chain explosion!
Why?
When you interweave the ice cream sticks, you are causing them to build up ‘potential energy’. Potential energy is the energy an object holds that can be used to do some work in the future. Simply put, it has the potential to do work based on its position, or its internal stresses or it electrical charge, etc.
In this case, each stick is slightly bent over another stick and held under a previous stick. This is not a normal position for the wood fibres they are made of. This twisting and bending causes each stick to gather potential energy.
It is the law of the world that energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only change form. When you let go of the last stick, the twists and bends unravel and the potential energy of the sticks converts to kinetic energy. Kinetic energy is the energy that a body has due to motion. The quick chain explosion of the sticks is thanks to them gaining kinetic energy.
Picture Credit : Google
