Experiment While Making A Bouncy Ball
Amy Huntley is a former science teacher and Mom that runs a great blog where she shares activities that she has done with her family. This exploration of polymers and bouncing balls caught our eye and we were happy that Amy would share it with us. We’ve adapted it just a bit. The fun part is experimenting, and it is easy to make several of these and change up the recipe and check results. Note that this will not make a bouncy ball like you get at the grocery store, but ours bounced over a foot high and the ball has quite a unique feel to it.
You will need:
- Borax (found in laundry section)
- warm water
- corn starch
- glue (clear glue makes a see transparent ball and white glue makes an opaque ball)
- 2 small mixing cups
- a stirring stick (plastic spoon)
- food coloring (optional)
Procedure:
- Label one cup ‘Borax Solution’ and the other cup ‘Ball Mixture’.
- Pour 4 ounces (120ml) of warm water into the cup labeled ‘Borax Solution’ and 1 teaspoon of the borax powder into the cup. Stir the mixture to dissolve the borax.
- Pour 1 tablespoon of glue into the cup labeled ‘Ball Mixture’. Add 3-4 drops of food coloring, if desired.
- Add 1/2 teaspoon of the borax solution you just made and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch to the glue. Do not stir.
- Allow the ingredients to interact on their own for 10-15 seconds and then stir them together to fully mix.
- Once the mixture becomes impossible to stir, take it out of the cup and start molding the ball with your hands. The ball will start out sticky and messy, but will solidify as you knead it. Once the ball is less sticky, continue rolling between your hands until it is smooth and round!
Amy adds:
“My boys loved making these “bouncy” balls. They are not super bouncy like the plastic super balls that became popular when I was a kid, but they are pretty bouncy and fun to play with. We discovered that on the carpet, they have a lot more bounce then they do on the kitchen floor. ”
These are also “temporary” bouncing balls and will lose their elasticity within a few days as they dry. Keeping your bouncy ball in a sealed bag will increase its bouncy lifespan.
The original “Super Balls” got their amazing bounce ability from compressed rubber under thousands of pounds of pressure.
How does it work?
This activity demonstrates an interesting chemical reaction, primarily between the borax and the glue. The borax acts as a “cross-linker” to the polymer molecules in the glue – basically it creates chains of molecules that stay together when you pick them up. The cornstarch helps to bind the molecules together so that they hold their shape better.
Make it an experiment
You can turn this activity into a true experiment by adjusting the amount of borax, glue, and cornstarch to get the highest bounce. You can also experiment to discover the best way to get the bouncy ball to keep its bounce over time. Have fun!
Check out Amy’s blog by clicking HERE.
WOW!!!!!! this realy works!?!
cool!!!!
I love it!
My 10 year old is making this project for his science fair. We have repeated this experiment multiple times and are unable to get the balls to bounce. They dent on the side that hits the floor, and when left overnight are flat as a pancake by morning. What are we doing wrong?
Be sure you are using white glue that is not the “washable” type. We used regular Elmers glue it our tests, and while other craft glues should work, I’m told the washable glues do not work as well. I hope that helps,
I once did it at school. so i didn’t make it my self. If u left it there it would go flat like a pancake. It also has a lot of cracks in it.
Then i did it myself. me and two friends did it. It was only yesterday. It was a science project too. Mine was the only one that worked. the two friends balls were too squishy. mine was hard and bouncy. it doesn’t bounc like one you buy from the store but it is a good balll to play with. Actually i noticed it bounced on carpet better than wood or tile or cement. Anything hard. Its better on something cushioning.
My friends and the people at school probably put too much of some ingredients so it wouldn’t work correctly. The second time worked out for me better than my friends. Lets face it store balls r better!!!(:
hey this does work i did it last night and it bounced for a wile but then when i went to go get it out of my room it was flat like crazy what am i doing wrong do you no ScienceBob?
Just so you guys know its the cornstarch that makes it bounce less…. my school did it as a chemistry lab and found that the balls without cornstarch in them worked much better… rest of the ingredients of fine.
hey it looks awesome im 10 years old and i think its great for any age and cornstarch will make the ball less bouncy!!!
instead of corn starch can u use corn flour
This is awesome!
cool i tried it for a science project and everyone loved it.
hey there i love this but you do not have wat it t is called!!
Wow this was so fun
I AM DOING THIS FOR MY EXPERIMENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Im doing a project on this lab its hard to make a conclusion on this but when my science partners tried this it didn’t bounce at all. So, what should i say as my conclusion on the data???
Your conclusion would be based on your hypothesis (what you thought would happen) If, for example) your hypothesis was that the ball would bounce, and it did not, your conclusion would be that the steps you followed did not make a ball that bounces. I hope that helps a bit.
im going to do this for my science fair ‘ hope it really works