Vinegar Poppers Lab

Just today, we started a lab where we combined baking soda and vinegar to create a chemical reaction. This chemical reaction created carbondioxide which made a cork fly off a test tube.

When we first recieved this lab, many thoughts were being juggled around in my head. I was anxious to start our lab because it sounded a lot of fun. I personally love messy labs. Our goal was to get the cork to hit the window three times in a row. To accomplish this goal, we needed to find the correct proportion and an accurate launch projection.

This lab looked pretty simple, but it was not as easy as it seemed. Two groups, in my class, hit the window once. The farthest our cork went, in seven tries, was 510cm. Our cork needed to travel 210cm more to reach the window. Our measurements for the best distance was approx. 6mL baking soda (NaHCO3) and approx. 25mL vinegar (CH3COOH).
According to our results, we realized there needs to be more vinegar than baking soda, but not too much. In this lab, sometimes less is more.

I personally really enjoyed this lab. Even though we didn't hit the window, it was a lot of fun. I entirely enjoyed myself. I'm looking forward to figuring out the exact measurments in the lab tommorow. Hopefully we hit the window three times in a row tommorow!