Everything set up by my team was the first attempt, we followed the directions given. A type of soft-looking bright gray to dark gray foam-like substance began forming at the edges of the mixture on the sand as the fire made by the match spread over it. It felt cotton-soft and would break into smaller parts when squished, also leaving blackish dust, like charcoal, on the hand. The formation of the substance began slow when the match was lit, but progressed throughout the hour of the experiment nevertheless. At times of the experiment, more alcohol was pumped onto the bowl’s top into the sand and mixture, and that seemed to have affected the substance’s formation speed, so the speed of the formation might’ve depended on the amount of alcohol there was. From my observation and perspective, sugar that was in the mixture might’ve been the leading cause of the formation of the soft substance as the composition of the mixture was mainly comprised of sugar, 20 grams to be exact, and the substance seemed to only form on edges of the sugar. In the first endeavor, the formation of the substance slowed down drastically halfway through the experiment even though alcohol was pumped onto the bowl constantly and soaking the mixture and sand, thus another bowl was set up with the help of our facilitator. My team’s endeavor in the experiment resulted in a short and wide pillar consisted of the substance and was slightly tilted in a direction. The change of speed formation might’ve been because there wasn’t a sufficient or sustainable-enough amount of alcohol soaked inside the sand before the experiment began. The supposed result or outcome other teams got was a serpent-like structure composed of the soft substance. The second endeavor, despite the first one, ended in a success as the formation speed was noticeably faster because there was more alcohol and by the time the hour of the experiment elapsed, there was the serpent-like structure as expected. It was then that I saw why it was called the way it was, “The Black Snake” because of the result.
Explanation:
For the past few weeks in Physical Science, we learned about Carbon and then we decided to do an experiment called the Black Snake! Below are some more details of the experiment if you are wondering. The paragraph above is a report from my perspective when doing the experiment.
Directions: From what I remember, the following was done chronologically:
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- We first measured a 25-gram mixture of 20 grams of sugar and 5 grams of baking soda (sodium carbonate).
- Sand was poured into an aluminum-foil-covered bowl and on top of the sand, in the middle, came the mixture.
- The sand was then soaked thoroughly with alcohol.
- A match was then lighted and put in the middle of the mixture in the bowl.
- From there, the experiment began.
Thank you for reading! Oh, here are some more photos from the experiment:
