fandomhigh | Applied Science | Monday

Entry tags:

applied science

Applied Science | Monday | 11.09

The lab tables had potatoes, wires, nails, and cheap digital clocks on them this morning. One of these things was not like the others.

"We're making potato batteries today," Tyler said, explaining the odd assortment. "What you're doing is using the potato to transfer electrochemical energy. Now, a battery is a device that converts chemical energy directly to electrical energy.[21] It consists of a number of voltaic cells; each voltaic cell consists of two half cells connected in series by a conductive electrolyte containing anions and cations ...." He went on for a while, thoroughly explaining the science.

"The potato's not important. The potato's just acting as a buffer between the zinc in the nails and the copper in the wire. You can do pretty much the same thing with lemons, pickles, apples ... you get the idea."

"Pair up and use this handout to make potato batteries. Extra credit if you find a better way to do it."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Make potato batteries!

Edited 2009-11-09 14:05 (UTC)

Jennifer was, in fact, big and green today. But she had clothes that fit her when she was like this, now, so it was actually really... comfortable for her.

She was futzing with the potato, and wondering how much electricity you'd have to send through one to bake it.

It was hard to ignore that one of his students was big and green today.

"Jennifer?" Tyler asked quietly. "Are you okay to be in class?"

The last thing he needed was for someone to go SMASH on the clocks.

"I am," Jennifer said with a pleased smile. "It's a bit of a story, but this isn't tied to how angry I am, anymore."

"That sounds like good news," Tyler said. "And from that smile, I'm going to guess you aren't stuck?"

"It's totally a 'by choice' arrangement," Jennifer said. "And it is good news. It just was a bit of a trial to get to it."

Tyler eyed her, the potatoes, and her again before coming to a decision. "If you have free time Friday," he said, "I'd love to hear the whole story during my office hours."

Jennifer smiled and nodded. "That sounds like a good idea to me," she said. "I promise to stop in."

"Then I will see you then."

Some people were lateral thinkers. Calvin's thought processes, however, were more likely to bring to mind the term 'non-Euclidean'.

Which was why Calvin was 'improving' his potato battery by attaching a watch battery to it.

Ben snickered when he saw what Calvin was up to. "He didn't say the improvements had to be made of produce," he noted.

"And it's not like I'm bypassing the potato entirely," Calvin pointed out. "That would be cheating."

"Oh, definitely," Ben agreed. "Unless there's a species of potato that already has its own hardware bred into it?"

No, Ben. Don't make a robot potato.

"That'd be so cool," Calvin said, grinning. "It could cook itself when you picked it."

Yes, Ben. Make a robot potato. You know you want to.

"That would be astral," Ben said, laughing. "And all of their little eyes. They'd make excellent spies before we ate the evidence."

"No one would ever suspect a potato after all."

Momoko was poking more things into her potato and trying to see if she could ~~make it cuter~~ get more energy based on where she placed things. For example, a frowny kitty potato? It had nails for ears and whiskers, bolts for eyes...

"Ooh, we can decorate our potatoes, too?" That was kind of amusing, actually.

Momoko was grinning when she looked up from twisting a screw into place as a nose. "Well, Mr Durden said we should try to make it work better!" Momoko winked.

"Maybe wire whiskers, then?" K-Mart mused aloud as she looked at her own potato. "You do nails, I do wires, and we see whose whiskers work better?"

This was their version of scientific experiment, apparently.

Totally was! For Science!

"Wire whiskers would be totally cute! Uhm, I mean, totally a good possibility. Ok! But can I use some wire for the mouth? Or I could try to use a bent nail, I guess." She pinched her lip and stared at her work so far.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Applied Science | Monday | 11.09

Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]

Re: Science! [11.09]