Everyday Curiosity: Blenders

White text overlaid on a picture of a blender reads "Did you know that the most powerful blenders use bulletproof glass to make the blender jar?" The banner at the bottom includes the full Opportunity Unlocked logo and "Everyday Curiosity: Because everyday questions should have hands-on answers"When I think about the perfect smoothie or milkshake, I think of a thick frozen river right on the verge of flowing. I love being able to use a spoon or a straw to enjoy my milkshake. Every morning, I make a smoothie before leaving the house.

At first glance, it’s not clear how a blender works. How could the short blades manage to turn a bunch of frozen fruit into a smooth liquid? The sharp blades spin quickly in order to start the process. The blades cut and stir. In order for a mixture to blend, it needs to flow. People will add more water to their mixture in order to make sure that it can flow. When a blender’s blades move through fluids, they create an incredible number of bubbles.

We might not think of bubbles as an ideal way to cut things. However, when bubbles pop because of the fluid pressure, they send a shockwave through the liquid. The faster the blender blades spin, the more bubbles they create. One reason why the blades of blenders are so small compared to the rest of the blender volume is to prevent these shockwaves from damaging the blades. Did you know that the most powerful blenders use bulletproof glass to make the blender jar? The blade tips of these blenders travel at over 270 miles per hour.

The blender was first invented in Wisconsin following the creation of variable speed motors. The first blender patent was awarded in 1924.

Everyday Curiosity is a weekly magazine for kids aged 8-14 that explores math, science, and engineering. Each issue asks one big question and has three related hands-on projects to go deeper into the math, science, and engineering behind everyday observations. The projects use supplies that are already in the house or could be found easily at a grocery store, general department store, or (in rare cases) a hardware store. 

Everyday Curiosity: Crayons

White text overlaid on a picture of a circular container full of crayons reads "Did you know that crayons were among the earliest waterproof markers?" The banner at the bottom includes the full Opportunity Unlocked logo and "Everyday Curiosity: Because everyday questions should have hands-on answers"I like coloring with crayons because so many different crayon colors exist. Did you know that crayons were used as a kind of waterproof marker? Edwin Binney and Harold Smith, the inventors behind Crayola crayons, combined paraffin wax with their carbon black pigment to make black crayons.

It didn’t take long before people started asking for more colors. Teachers wanted their students to be able to use crayons to make art. The challenge was creating pigments that were safe for people. Carbon black came from oil and charcoal. Binney, Smith, and teachers everywhere knew that children would be rubbing their faces while they were coloring with crayons, so all colors needed to be safe. Safe pigments come from ground up rocks.

Originally, crayons came in eight colors. However, we can change the pigment recipe in order to make new colors. Combining safe pigments in different amounts can create new safe pigments. Today, Crayola has made 120 different color crayons.

Everyday Curiosity is a weekly magazine for kids aged 8-14 that explores math, science, and engineering. Each issue asks one big question and has three related hands-on projects to go deeper into the math, science, and engineering behind everyday observations. The projects use supplies that are already in the house or could be found easily at a grocery store, general department store, or (in rare cases) a hardware store. You can win a one-year subscription by entering in the Back to School Giveaway.

Everyday Curiosity: Traffic Lights

White text overlaid on a picture of green light reads "Did you know that the most common traffic light design is protected by a design patent?" The banner at the bottom includes the full Opportunity Unlocked logo and "Everyday Curiosity: Because everyday questions should have hands-on answers"Traffic lights help us stay safe by telling us when we can cross the street. Many traffic lights are signals for drivers and pedestrians alike. Ever since more and more people moved into cities, inventors have worked to reduce the number of traffic accidents.

Traffic signals work on a simple premise: tell people when it is safe to go. The earliest traffic signals used two signals (Stop and Go). The challenge with these signals was that they did not give people time to react. In 1923, Garrett Morgan patented a traffic signal that incorporated three settings. Morgan’s traffic signal included an intermediate setting that stopped all traffic. In Morgan’s design, arms of a T-shaped design folded down to stop traffic in both directions.

When we think of traffic lights, we think of three lights stacked on top of each other. This design came later and uses a design patent. The US Patent and Trademark Office awards design patents when an inventor wants to propose changes to an invention’s appearance. If you see a patent number with the letter ”D” at the beginning, it is a design patent.

Everyday Curiosity is a weekly magazine for kids aged 8-14 that explores math, science, and engineering. Each issue asks one big question and has three related hands-on projects to go deeper into the math, science, and engineering behind everyday observations. The projects use supplies that are already in the house or could be found easily at a grocery store, general department store, or (in rare cases) a hardware store. You can win a one-year subscription by entering in the Back to School Giveaway.

Everyday Curiosity: Toothpaste

White text overlaid on a picture of a smurf with a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste reads "Did you know that ancient Egyptians made the earliest tooth pastes?" The banner at the bottom includes the full Opportunity Unlocked logo and "Everyday Curiosity: Because everyday questions should have hands-on answers"Our teeth transform each bite of food into something that can be swallowed. Humans have always noticed that food can get stuck between our teeth and have invented diverse ways to to clean our teeth. Did you know that ancient Egyptians made the earliest tooth pastes?

Toothpastes rely on a combination of ingredients to scrub your teeth and ingredients to wash your teeth. The scrubbing ingredients are abrasives. Ancient humans used crumbled rocks, crushed bones, burnt eggshells, and crushed shells. Modern toothpastes use various abrasives like calcium carbonate (chalk), magnesium carbonate, and dehydrated silica gels. Abrasives need to be strong enough to scrub off plaque while safe on teeth enamel. Fluoride is added to toothpastes to strengthen enamel. When fluoride combines with enamel, the tooth’s surface is less likely to be dissolved by acids. The washing ingredients are detergents. In toothpastes, the detergents foam and make it easier to clean bacteria off of teeth. Bacteria cause bad breath.

Other toothpaste ingredients include things like flavorings and ingredients that help the toothpaste maintain its color and shape. If you look at the label on your toothpaste, what ingredients do you see? Can you identify what abrasive is in your toothpaste?

Everyday Curiosity is a weekly magazine for kids aged 8-14 that explores math, science, and engineering. Each issue asks one big question and has three related hands-on projects to go deeper into the math, science, and engineering behind everyday observations. The projects use supplies that are already in the house or could be found easily at a grocery store, general department store, or (in rare cases) a hardware store. You can win a one-year subscription by entering in the Back to School Giveaway.

Everyday Curiosity: Ears and Hearing

White text overlaid on a picture of a squirrel with extremely furry ears reads "Did you know that there are three bones attached to your ear drum? These bones are the smallest in your body." The banner at the bottom includes the full Opportunity Unlocked logo and "Everyday Curiosity: Because everyday questions should have hands-on answers"Our ears are incredible sound detection machines.  Sound enters through the outer ear and travels through the ear canal. The sound wave hits the ear drum causing the ear drum to vibrate. Did you know that there are 3 small bones attached to your ear drum? When your ear drum vibrates, it causes these bones to vibrate as well. The bones transfer the vibration from the ear drum to the cochlea, or the inner ear. The cochlea looks like a spiral snail shell, and it is filled with fluid. The vibrations move through the fluid. Eventually the vibration gets all the way to the center of the spiral, named the organ of Corti, that has hair cells inside. The vibration causes the hair cells to move, which sends signals through the auditory nerve. The brain decodes the signal to the auditory nerve so we can make sense of what we are hearing.

Even though it seems like there are a ton of steps, the whole process is very quick. The speed of sound is 340 meters per second or 767 miles per hour. The exact anatomy of the ear changes depending on the animal. Squirrels and dogs can hear a wider range of sounds than humans because these animals have more sensitive hearing.

Everyday Curiosity is a weekly magazine for kids aged 8-14 that explores math, science, and engineering. Each issue asks one big question and has three related hands-on projects to go deeper into the math, science, and engineering behind everyday observations. The projects use supplies that are already in the house or could be found easily at a grocery store, general department store, or (in rare cases) a hardware store. You can win a one-year subscription by entering in the Back to School Giveaway.

Everyday Curiosity: Gold

White text overlaid on a picture of gold medal reads "Did you know that gold is the least likely metal to show any signs of weathering?" The banner at the bottom includes the full Opportunity Unlocked logo and "Everyday Curiosity: Because everyday questions should have hands-on answers"Awards are a great way to encourage people to put forth their best efforts. It is common to give medals and trophies. As we think about recognizing achievements, we also can learn a lot about the materials we use to make the awards.

Many awards are made from gold, silver, or bronze. Bronze is actually copper that has been alloyed, which is a fancy word for combined, with other metals. The thing about copper, silver, and gold is that we can find these metals as rocks. That’s why we can find gold and silver using techniques like panning. Copper, silver, and gold attract our attention because they are shiny. These metals are found in the same element group, meaning that if you look on chemistry’s periodic table, you will see these three elements stacked atop one another.

Gold is the most desirable of these three metals for a lot of reasons. First, it is the rarest of the metals because it has the heaviest atoms. Second, it does not react with other elements like oxygen. Gold does not rest or discolor. Additionally, gold is one of the easiest metals to work with where it can be pounded into thin sheets called gold leaf. Most things that appear to be gold, like gold medals themselves, are made of other metals that have been covered by gold leaf.

Everyday Curiosity is a weekly magazine for kids aged 8-14 that explores math, science, and engineering. You can win a one-year subscription by entering in the Back to School Giveaway.

Everyday Curiosity: Air Conditioner

White text overlaid on a picture of commercial air conditioning units reads "Did you know that the human body needs to use some form of cooling system for all temperatures over 82 degrees Fahrenheit?" The banner at the bottom includes the full Opportunity Unlocked logo and "Everyday Curiosity: Because everyday questions should have hands-on answers"Too much heat can be a dangerous thing. In order for the body to maintain its core temperature without any kind of heating or cooling, the temperature should be 82 °F. If it is hotter than that, then we need ways to keep cool.

The earliest cooling systems tried to direct wind through a structure. Sweating is our body’s natural cooling system; blowing winds speed up evaporating sweat off of our skin. Before we had air conditioning, rich people resorted to all kinds of tricks using snow and ice to keep cool in the summer. Caretakers of the ailing President Garfield blew air through sheets doused in ice water in order to keep him cool.

Air conditioners have a mighty task: to cool the air so that it is less than the external temperature. W.H. Carrier patented the first air conditioner in 1906. The reason why it took us so long to invent air conditioners is that, at first glance, air conditioners appear to violate physics. You see, energy naturally flows from hot to cold. We use heat to warm things up. Thermal energy enters things that are colder.

The reason why ice can cool things down is that it maintains its temperature of 32 °F for the entire melting process. The secret of air conditioning is to use electricity to power a compressor which can condense a refrigerant. When the refrigerant is condensed into a liquid, it can absorb the extra thermal energy from the house and blow the hot air back outside.

Everyday Curiosity is a weekly electronic magazine for kids ages 8 to 14 that explores math, science, and engineering in the real world. Each issue asks one big question and has three related hands-on projects to go deeper into the math, science, and engineering behind everyday observations. The projects use supplies that are already in the house or could be found easily at a grocery store, general department store, or (in rare cases) a hardware store.

Everyday Curiosity: Swimsuits

White text overlaid on an underwater picture of two swimmers racing reads "Did you know that moving through air is 780 times easier than moving through water?" The banner at the bottom includes the full Opportunity Unlocked logo and "Everyday Curiosity: Because everyday questions should have hands-on answers"Competitive swimmers are incredible athletes. Swims get faster and faster, seemingly defying physics. It is possible for swimmers to harness the adrenaline of huge competitions and record personal best swims that blow world records out of the water. When swimmers are in the water, they are in a battle with friction and drag. Nearly everything a swimmer does in the water is an attempt to move through the water more efficiently. At first glance, one might not even see all of the technology in the pool.

Manufacturers of competitive swimsuits are always researching ways to help swimmers. Did you know that moving through air is 780 times easier than moving through water? Every small improvement in suit design has the potential for a huge payoff. Most suits used in major competition use compression fabrics to make the body more hydrodynamic. The challenge is getting the compression in the right places. Many swimsuit companies spend countless hours analyzing swimming to reduce drag on a swimmer.

In 2009, an incredible number of swimmers set world records by wearing suits that could trap air. When these suits were banned from competition, swimsuit companies needed to come up with different ideas. The suit ban inspired companies to redesign the swim cap and googles. Swimsuit companies work hard to improve their designs while still following rules to keep competitions fair.

Everyday Curiosity is a weekly electronic magazine for kids ages 8 to 14 that explores math, science, and engineering in the real world. Each issue asks one big question and has three related hands-on projects to go deeper into the math, science, and engineering behind everyday observations. The projects use supplies that are already in the house or could be found easily at a grocery store, general department store, or (in rare cases) a hardware store.

Everyday Curiosity: Oscillating Fans

White text overlaid on a close-up picture of desktop fan reads "Did you knot that a series of four gears causes an oscillating fan to move back and forth?" The banner at the bottom includes the full Opportunity Unlocked logo and "Everyday Curiosity: Because everyday questions should have hands-on answers"It’s August, and that means I’m thinking about how to cope with the summer heat. It always seems to me that August air tends to have more humidity, making the air feel heavy, thick, and stagnant. Thankfully, we have oscillating fans to help push the air around the room. Have you ever asked the question, “How does an oscillating fan work?”

To begin, electric fans are powered by motors. The fan blades attach to the spindle of the motor. When the motor is switched on, the blades spin. Understanding how the fan oscillates requires learning more about gears.

A series of four gears work together to cause the fan to oscillate. The first gear looks like a tube. This gear is called a worm gear, and it enables the oscillation to happen slowly. The worm gear attaches to the control gear. The control gear enables people to turn the fan’s oscillating feature on and off. Lastly the control gear turns another gear that drives a four-bar linkage system. The stiff links cannot change their length, making it possible for the fan to oscillate in a semi-circular arc.

Everyday Curiosity is a weekly electronic magazine for kids ages 8 to 14 that explores math, science, and engineering in the real world. Each issue asks one big question and has three related hands-on projects to go deeper into the math, science, and engineering behind everyday observations. The projects use supplies that are already in the house or could be found easily at a grocery store, general department store, or (in rare cases) a hardware store.

Everyday Curiosity: Board Games

White text overlaid on a close-up picture of a Monopoly board reads "Did you know that the ideas found in board games are protected by patents?" The banner at the bottom includes the full Opportunity Unlocked logo and "Everyday Curiosity: Because everyday questions should have hands-on answers"When you are selling board games, it is important to protect your idea. The game Monopoly is one of the most popular games in existence. Charles Darrow is credited as the inventor of Monopoly. On December 31, 1935, Darrow received patent number 2,026,082. He hand wrote the board and cards, used wooden scraps for the houses and hotels, and took the charms off of his nieces’ charm bracelets to use as tokens.

However, two other inventors had games very similar to Monopoly. Elizabeth Magie invented The Landlord’s Game to teach people about different taxation systems. Dan Layman learned about Magie’s game and wanted to sell it so he created the game Finance.

Trademarks and patents are an important part of the law. Layman called his game Finance because his lawyers told him that ”monopoly” could not be trademarked. Magie had patented The Landlord’s Game, meaning that other companies could not sell her game without her permission When Parker Brothers wanted to produce, market, and sell Monopoly, they negotiated with Magie to purchase her patent and made sure that Darrow wrote a patent to document his changes to the game. Good games require a great imagination and a willingness to pay attention to small details.

Everyday Curiosity is a weekly electronic magazine for kids ages 8 to 14 that explores math, science, and engineering in the real world. Each issue asks one big question and has three related hands-on projects to go deeper into the math, science, and engineering behind everyday observations. The projects use supplies that are already in the house or could be found easily at a grocery store, general department store, or (in rare cases) a hardware store.