The Halloween Magic show was held in the little Theater at Lompoc High School in October 28, 2010. Jenus Vang our scientist, preformed the following demos:

• Methanol Cannon
• Candy Corn Reaction

with the help of our Lab Tech: Taylor Silva, and our Stage hand: Georgina Torres.

Before the show our sicientist Jenus Vang Said:
"I cant wait for the day to come, i'm excited, but at the same time nervous, because its my first time on stage. I have to say my favorite demo, is the Methanol Cannon. Because its an explosion that suddly just burts up in air, while a green color follows."

Also Taylor, and Georgina. were excited about the hallowween magic show!

It was awsome, and i like to give the thanks to our teacher Mr. Wold for giving us this opportunity, and seeing Chemistry as a fun safe habit.
-Jesus Sanchez (Repoter)

Gummie Bear Reaction

Ingredients: potassium chlorate, propane torch, gummy bears, test tube

Procedure: A complete recipe follows:

1. Place a small quantity of potassium chlorate in a test tube.
2. Heat the solid salt until it becomes molten, demonstrating the high melting point of ionic solids.
3. Heat the solid further until it decomposes.
4. Add a small bit of a gummy bear to the test tube and observe the reaction

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txkRCIPSsjM



Methonal Canon

Materials:

Two-Liter Botttle (Empty)

Two 4" Nails

Hot Glue

Methanol/Ethanol (20 mL for each shot) montecarlo says the suffix -ol in methanOL already implies "alcohol". So it's either "methanol" or "methyl alcohol", but never "methanol alcohol".

Multiple Corks that fit in the top of the bottle (number of corks = number of shots)

Either a high powered Tesla-Coil or Transformer (either must be able to produce a charge great enough to jump a spark gap) note: rootbeer277 thankfully informed me to warn you all of the risks involved in a high powered transformer, please read all labels and warnings on the transformer before conducting this expirement.

Ring Stand or similar device to hold the bottle at an angle (unless you want to shoot the cork straight up)

Setup:

Poke the two nails through the middle of the bottle on opposite sides to each other until the points are roughly a centimeter apart inside the bottle.

Hot glue around the nails so that there is no way for air to escape.

Make sure the glue is dry and add the alcohol to the bottle, cork and shake vigorously.

The alcohol should all dissolve in the air of the bottle, if not you've added too much, but no worries, it will just either combust or stay in the bottom following the reaction.

Stand the bottle up at the angle you want the cork to shoot at (preferably not at anything you don't want broken). You may also want to set up a blast shield just in case the nails are loose enough to come out.

Set up the tesla-coil/transformer in a circuit that causes a spark to form between the two nails. This will ignite the alcohol vapors inside the bottle, causing the cork to rocket from the bottle.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhTM12VB9To

CHEMISTRY HALLOWEEN SHOW

The Methanol Canon is one of those fairly basic high school chemistry experiments designed not so much to help you learn chemistry, but rather have a chance to blow stuff up. I suppose you could go into the structural makeup of methyl alcohol and some electrical background stuff, but it's a reach, especially because the reaction itself doesn't really help explain anything. You can use either Ethanol or Methanol, but the latter produces a larger explosion.

The Gummi Bear Reaction is mostly sugar, which is easily oxidized by something like molten potassium chlorate. Ideally, a balanced equation would show sucrose (C12H22O11) being converted to carbon dioxide and water while the KClO3 becomes KCl. The actual reaction does not seem to go to total completion since there is usually a little gunky residue left behind.