I had a lava lamp as a teenager and I thought it was the best thing ever. I have no idea why I loved this 70s staple, or why they were even still selling them, but I felt so deeply cool for having one in my bedroom! Today, I sadly don’t have a lava lamp in my bedroom any more, but I did try a quick science experiment and attempted to make one myself.
This was from another of the James Dyson Foundation Challenge Cards – different science experiments and engineering challenges that are mainly aimed at children but that I have done many of and found them really interesting!
All I needed for this one was some oil, food colouring, an effervescent tablet, water, and a bottle to put it all in. Once it was all in, I very slowly tipped it from side to side to mix it a little and get the bubbles moving.
I was hoping for bigger and fewer bubbles, but the hundreds of little bubbles did look very cool. The lava part was down, but how did it look as a lamp? I put a torch behind it to test it out.
How cool does that look?! The bubbles were whizzing up and down so fast it was hard to get a true photo, but let me tell you, it looked so cool. It wasn’t quite as chilled out as the lava lamp from my teenage years, but the frenetic energy of these little blue bubbles gave me so much joy to look at. A simple, yet super fun experiment, that I found really satisfying!
New Day, New Thing 