Dancing Noodle – Science Project

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We love science projects in this house, from making a potato powered clock to creating a shiny penny. This week through the Collective Bias, we had a chance to make a vlog of dancing noodles! Yes, we are using chemistry to make the noodles dance!

On Tuesday, I went to our local Tesco Extra and bought these few ingredients. Firstly, I needed lots of vinegar, so I went to the sauce aisle to look for it. For this project, I used distilled vinegar and not malt vinegar because of the colour.

Then I went to the baking aisle to look for bicarbonate of soda/baking soda. It normally sits next to the baking powder, so it is very important that you get the correct one. The difference between these two are; baking soda is pure sodium bicarbonate whilst baking powder contains sodium bicarbonate, cream of tartar and drying agent.

These are the materials you will need:

• Vinegar
• Baking soda
• Water
• Glass jar
• Cooked spaghetti
• Food colouring (optional)
• Spoon/fork
• Hand towel

Method:

1. Fill the glass jar with water and vinegar. The proportion is 1:1. Adjust the quantities according to how big your glass jar. I am using 500ml of water with 500ml of vinegar.
2. Add the cooked spaghetti, then a few drops of food colouring and stir the mixture.
3. Then add a tablespoon of baking soda each time and see what happens! Always have a hand towel handy as it can get quite messy! Yes, big explosion!

When adding baking soda to vinegar, it releases carbon dioxide (CO2). These gas bubbles adhere to the noodles, which makes them much lighter causing them to float up then sink back down again when the bubbles are released in to the air.

After around 10 tablespoons of baking soda, the mixture won’t be able to be used any more. So if your children loves this project, I would suggest you buy more bottles of vinegar to avoid disappointment!

My children were more fascinating with the explosion of the gas bubbles than the science behind this project!

Watch our dancing noodle science project video here: