Feb 19

Well, this didn’t quite work out exactly to plan. This is a smoothie bottle with a hole in the bottom and a straw jammed into the hole. The idea is that you half fill the bottle and microwave it so the water boils, the steam rushes out the bottom, and you have a hovercraft. What really happens is the water boils, the bottle shrinks, the microwave half fills with steam and then the base of the bottle pops out and the bottle leans at a scary angle prompting you to shut off power to the microwave rather urgently. Note how loosely the label now fits, that shows the shrinkage that took place!

Unexpected shrinkage of smoothie bottle


8 comments so far...

  • stu Said on February 19th, 2006 at 21:09:

    Booooo :(

    Time to try with a new bottle made of a different plastic? :)

  • namke Said on February 19th, 2006 at 21:12:

    bored at work, or bored at home? :)

  • sweavo Said on February 19th, 2006 at 21:14:

    Heh. Born out of conversations with Mark from I.T. so a work-related thing definitely…

  • lordhutton Said on February 19th, 2006 at 21:36:

    *goes to try it tomorrow.

  • Lisa Said on February 19th, 2006 at 23:37:

    This reminds me of when I was a kid and we used to warm yogurt pots in the oven - they flattened to a disc shape. I think this is because they are pressed out of a disc of plastic and warming them returns them to their original shape.

  • kate Said on February 20th, 2006 at 09:51:

    :-( sounded like a great idea when U explained it to me. Keep trying ’cause I want to see a little steam train going round and round in a microwave :-)

  • 2wheeler Said on February 20th, 2006 at 14:03:

    Be careful of Mark: He’s probably about to develop a steam powered stereo that runs off an overheating Singer motor :-o

  • sweavo Said on February 20th, 2006 at 16:07:

    http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/dec97/882909591.Ph.r.html

    Search in page for “I found that single”

leave a reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

 

February 2006
S M T W T F S
« Jan   Mar »
 1234
567891011
12131415161718
19202122232425
262728  

Archives

Meta