| Item | |
|---|---|
| Borax | |
| White glue (Elmer's Glue) or Blue or Clear school glue (makes a translucent ball) | |
| Warm water | |
| 2 Small plastic cups or other containers for mixing | |
| Spoon to stir the mixture | |
| Zip-lock plastic baggie | |
| Cornstarch (optional) | |
| Food coloring (optional) | |
| You may want to use gloves for this experiment, as it can get a bit sticky. |
1) One of the cups/containers will contain the borax mixture and the other a ball mixture
2) Pour 2 tablespoons of warm water and ½ teaspoon of borax powder into the cup for the borax solution. Stir the mixture to dissolve the borax.
3) Pour 1 tablespoon of glue into the cup for the ball mixture. You may add food coloring to give the bouncy ball color.
4) Add ½ teaspoon of the borax solution you just made. Do not stir. Allow the ingredients to interact on their own for 20-30 seconds and then stir them together to fully mix. Once the mixture becomes impossible to stir, take it out of the cup and start molding the ball with your hands.
5) The ball will start out sticky and messy, but will solidify as you knead it. If it's still sticky, add just a little bit more borax solution to the surface, and continue molding it. Repeat this step as many times as necessary, but be careful, as adding too much borax will be detrimental to the project.
6) Once the ball is less sticky, it is ready to be bounced!
7) You can store the ball in the ziplock baggie for later use.
Try making another bouncy ball, but this time include cornstarch (1 tablespoon is the recommended amount). Or, you can try it again but with different proportions of the ingredients. Trying adding more borax than last time. What happens with each change?
