Blog 9: UFO Ball

From third to fifth grade, every year I went to an annual "space camp" called Future Flight Hawaii.  Although a lot of my friends think it's funny that I went to a space camp, it was still one of the vest experiences of my life.  Every year I came home with fun and interesting toys that was related to the things we learned at camp.  One of the things I brought home was this UFO ball.  Like the chicken Mrs. Chen used in class, this ball only lights up when you touch both metal strips at the same time.  This is because to have a current, you need two things, 1) a voltage difference and 2) a connected path.  The battery provides that voltage difference and touching both of the metal strips, which are conductors, provides the connective path for the current to flow through you and then the ball.  That is why when you take of either one of your fingers, the ball will stop flashing and making noise.

Blog 8: Static

Since my brother was on playing COD on the TV downstairs for hours already, I decided to watch a DVD on my grandma's old TV that we had upstairs.  It is a lot smaller than the one currently being fried by the continuous Call of Duty tweaking but it would do for watching a short movie.  When I turned on the TV I noticed that the arms of my hair were attracted to the TV screen (I put my head near the TV so that you can see the attraction better).  I immediately thought of how a balloon, when rubbed across someones head will also make one's hair stand up due to static electricity.  Because I did not know the reason behind this attraction, I used Google to discover that the screen is bombarded with electrically charged particles.  It makes sense now that your arms hairs, which are neutral, are attracted to the charged screen because the screen is trying to go back to neutral by giving off its electrons to your arm hairs.