Borax and Glue Polymer Lab with Corn Starch

DRAWING IN EMAIL LABLED:

BLOCK 1/3-9-11 LAB INVESTIGATION/AUSTIN CLARKE

For this lab we started by mixing borax, water, corn starch, and food coloring. Since there was now corn starch in the borax mixture it smelled different than the other mixture that smelt quite soapy. This mixture smelt sour and rancid. We then added that mixture to the glue to create a similar polymer to the one we made before. When the polymer came out it looked almost identical to the previous polymer. That was where the similarities ended. Unlike the other polymer, it did not bond as well as the other one. It also formed better than the other polymer. We tried bouncing the polymer to see its rebound at room temperature. The polymer rebounded an average of 18.75cm when dropped from 30cm. We then tried the rebound test again after it had been chilled. The average rebound was 6cm. This was puzzling because when we tried this with the other polymer it rebounded higher. When we tested the polymer frozen we found something even more puzzling. It rebounded to an average height of 17.5cm. After the drop tests we conducted stretch tests with the polymer at room temperature, chilled, and frozen. The results were exactly what we had predicted. At room temperature the polymer stretched 7cm, when it was chilled it stretched 5cm, and when it was frozen it stretched 2cm. Nothing went wrong with the test so overall I thought the test went very well.