Austin's Science Fair Project: The Fire Snake

Austin worked hard to complete a project for our annual homeschool science fair.  This year he decided that he wanted to make a "Carbon Fire Snake" using baking soda and powdered sugar. His question was "Does the type of lighting fluid matter when making a carbon fire snake?" He tested hand sanitizer, rubbing alcohol, and lighter fluid. It was a great experiment and he enjoyed the scientific method process

We weren't sure what type of experiment he wanted to do but when we saw this experiment on Youtube when we were doing our general investigation he knew he wanted to do it. I wasn't sure that it would work, because I wasn't sure how we could make the experiment into a whole science project. But Austin noticed that the person doing the experiment said that "any flammable liquid would work" and we talked about what kinds of liquids are flammable. That led us to wanting to test different flammable liquids, which ended up being really cool. In Austin's words "I wanted to do this experiment because it looked fun and I like fire."

We had to do the entire experiment twice because the first time we used the wrong kind of "sand" and that added another layer of interest as we did the experiment, even though we mostly used the data for the second round of experiments for the actual project. 









The Fire Snake

By Austin Peaden – 1st Grade 2022 

Question: When making a carbon snake out of powdered sugar and baking soda, does the lighting fluid make a difference? 

Hypothesis: I think lighter fluid will work best and make the biggest snake. 

Research:  The sugar and baking soda demonstrate the concept of COMBUSTION. When the sugar and baking soda in the experiment combust, it makes water, carbon, and carbon dioxide. The pressure created by the carbon dioxide pushes the sodium carbonate out, which creates the black carbon snake. This is an example of an exothermic reaction, which produce heat. (combustion causes heat because energy is released.) 

Process: 

1. Fill metal pan with sand
2. Mix 1 tsp baking soda with 4 tsp powdered sugar
3. Put 50 ml of flammable fluid in center of pan.
4. Pile powdered mix in center and light on fire. 

Supplies: Metal Pan
Sand
1tsp Baking Soda
4 tsp Powdered Sugar
50 ml Flammable Fluid(3): Lighter Fluid, Rubbing Alcohol, & Hand Sanitizer Lighter 

Data: 
#1 Hand Sanitizer Burned for: 5 minutes 55 seconds. Snake size: 2” wide by 1.5” tall
#2 Rubbing Alcohol Burned for: 15 minutes 34 seconds Snake size: 5” wide by 2” tall
#3 Lighter Fluid Burned for: 16 minutes 23 seconds Snake Size: 8” wide by 3” tall 

Results: I found that lighter fluid was the best to use. It made the biggest carbon snake. None of them made a snake as big as I expected, but the lighter fluid worked the very best.

Report: 

I chose this to be my project because it looked fun and I like fire. 

When doing my research, we saw that someone said any flammable liquid would work. I wanted to see if the type of lighting fluid made a difference. 

For my experiment I combined powdered sugar, baking soda, and a flammable liquid. I tested hand sanitizer, rubbing alcohol, and lighter fluid. After lighting it on fire, a carbon snake was made from the fire. The carbon snake is made by the carbon dioxide and carbon pushing out of the powdered sugar during combustion. Combustion is when something starts on fire. 

I thought that the lighter fluid would work the best because it would get the hottest. I thought it would make the biggest snake and I was right. It worked the best. None of them made as big of a snake as I expected, but the lighter fluid made the biggest one. We had to try two different sands, but on both sands the lighter fluid worked the best. Thank you for letting me tell you about my science experiment.