Make an object that doesn’t float or sink — it flinks!

Age level:
8 to 12

Materials

(icebreaker)

• 1 foam peanut
• 1 paper clip
• clear container filled halfway with water

(per pair)

• foam peanuts
• paper clips
• clear container (like a 2-liter soda bottle with the top cut off)

(ZOOMon)

• other small objects that float or sink (like a sponge cut up into 1-inch squares, cork wine tops, plastic bottle caps, pennies, washers)
• ZOOM links at pbskids.org/zoom/sci

Keep experimenting with liquids:

• Floating Paper Clips
• Dancing Raisins
• Water Density
• What’s More Dense?
• Pen Cap Submarine

Kid Feedback
Hear what kids have to say about Flinker at pbskids.org/zoom/sci/flinker.html

1. Icebreaker
   Drop a Styrofoam peanut and a paper clip into a container of water. Which one floats and which one sinks? Ask kids to brainstorm how they can make the foam peanut neither float nor sink, but “flink” for ten seconds.

2. Try It Out
   Organize kids into pairs and distribute activity materials. You might want to cover tables with newspaper to soak up any water spills. Encourage kids to first observe how the foam peanut floats. Then let them experiment with the materials until they get the peanut to flink. As you go around the room, ask kids to explain what they are doing and why. If kids are having difficulty, remind them to make small adjustments each time they change their Flinkers.

   

   When everyone has had time to fine tune their Flinkers, ask for volunteers to demonstrate their Flinkers to the class. (Sometimes it may be difficult to repeat this feat. If so, have kids describe what they did.) Ask: What do you observe? How did you get the Styrofoam peanut to flink for ten seconds? How many different ways did the whole group come up with? What might you do differently if you tired this again?

3. ZOOMon
   Have kids brainstorm other objects that float. How could you make these objects flink? If there’s time, you might want to encourage kids to repeat the activity with other materials (such as sponges, wine corks, or plastic bottle caps. They could also reverse the activity and try to make an object that sinks, like a penny, flink.

4. Connect to Engineering
   In real life, engineers have designed something very close to a flinker—a submarine. A submarine has ballast tanks that enable it to float or sink. The captain of the sub opens the tanks and takes in water when he or she wants to dive and uses compressed air to force the water out of the tanks when he or she wants to return to the sur- face. The captain can adjust the amount of water and air, so the sub “flinks,” just as the kids adjust the amount of foam peanut and paper clips in this activity.

Flinker is one of eight activities found in the new toolkit for ZOOM Into Engineering. National Engineers Week is joining forces with the popular PBS children's show ZOOM. The show helps young children learn critical concepts for success in science. Through ZOOM Into Engineering, EWeek volunteers will help students connect what they learn to engineering. Flinker was tested at the Lockheed Martin facility in Owego, New York, with help from the Roberson Science Center. Roberson serves as a ZOOMzone and a museum representative participated at Lockheed's student program during EWeek 2001. Flinker was a terrific success, according to the EWeek coordinator. Read more about this program and ZOOM Into Engineering at our ZOOMzone.

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Excerpted from ZOOM into Engineering Activity Guide, ®2001 WGBH Educational Foundation. All rights reserved. ZOOM and the ZOOM words and related indicia are trademarks of the WGBH Educational Foundation. Used with permission. ZOOM is produced by WGBH Boston. Funding for ZOOM is provided by the National Science Foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and public television viewers. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.