Engineering Club learns about materials, chemistry

The fourth meeting of the 4-H engineering club was held on June 9.

Once all members had arrived, our president, Nadia, opened the meeting with the 4-H pledge.

We then watched a slideshow on materials, specifically copper. We choose copper for our evening challenge, because it met our criteria: to heat up fast and was easy to bend.

Our challenge was to make a steam boat using a copper wire with a hole in each end. When the bent part was heated up, the molecules inside it moved faster, causing the steam (once the heated portion was put into water) to move our boats forward. This was really fun to do.

Members then made ice cream as our chemistry experiment. Each member used two bags. A smaller zip lock bag held cream, milk, sugar and vanilla, while the larger zip lock bag had ice and salt. When we put the 1st bag of ingredients into the 2nd bag of ice-salt mix, a chemical reaction happened. This caused the ingredients to become cold and turn into a solid state. Members then enjoyed eating their delicious ice cream.

Once all members tidied up, president Nadia closed the meeting with the 4-H motto.

submitted by Sarah Ceccato