Randomised Friday 24th October 2008 Issue 17

Hello, Halloween half-term holiday hooray!! We have a new Super Competition. Plus all sorts of bloody, brilliant fun (not swearing - honest) this week to celebrate the 31st October next week. Your next Randomised will be on the 14 Nov. Til then, have a go at our Over2U recipe and have a bloody, good time (not swearing - honest!).

  1. Planet Picks - Planet Super Powers!
  2. Gear Giveaway - Blood, Bones and Body Bits
  3. Over 2U! - Edible Blood
  4. Winners - 5 packs of Flipsides
  5. Rib Busters - Halloween Howlers

1. Planet Picks - Planet Super Powers!

Brought to you by Dr Elsa, aka Miz Ingenuity.

You can enter if you are aged 11 to 14 (and there’s an age 5 – 10 category too). Judges will select the best character design (that would be a drawing, with some notes) and the best science based super power (which could be just written, or written with a drawing). The competition closing date is the 1st of December 2008.

Are you a hero or villain ... or perhaps both! What science and engineering will you use to fight your enemies? Is your outfit practical and in fashion?

We're setting up a section on the Planet Science website with all the competition details, plus some science and superhero facts to get your ideas flowing. Visit Engineering Super Powers for inspiration.

So, mull it over and there’ll be more about this in your next Randomised.

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2. Gear Giveaway - You’ve got to be in it to win it...

blood, bones and body bits board gameNot for the squeamish this. Blood, Bones and Body Bits, The Kit from Horrible Science (how apt!) has 6 stomach-turning experiments to create a bag of brains, squirt blood through a heart and more. Would you like to win it?

Email us with your name and address, and the words ‘Bony Bits’ in the subject line, to randomised.news@nesta.org.uk

The draw will take place at 5pm on Wednesday 29th October.

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3. Over 2U! - Science experiments for you to try at home...

Edible Fake Blood

Very useful at Halloween, and sweeter than the real thing!

Section 1.01 You will need:

  • 100g cornflour
  • 100 ml water
  • Bowl or jug
  • Spoon to mix with
  • 4 tablespoons (about 80 ml) golden syrup
  • Red food colouring
  • Green food colouring

What to do:

  1. Make sure that your equipment and the surface you are working on are clean, so that it's quite safe to eat the 'blood' if you want to.

  2. Mix the cornflour and the water together in a bowl or jug. (If you're wondering why the cornflour behaves the strange way it does, take a look at the Custard Gone Crazy! experiment on the Little Book of Experiments website.)

  3. Stir in the golden syrup.

  4. Add two teaspoons of red food colouring and a few drops of green food colouring. Does your blood look realistic enough yet? You will need to play around with the quantities of red and green food colouring. Adding more red food colouring will make the blood look more pink and adding more green will give the blood a more browny colour.

  5. Add a drop of peppermint essence to give the blood a lovely minty taste.

  6. Use to decorate Halloween cakes or as a realistic addition to a costume.

What's happening?

What makes blood that wonderful vampire-attracting colour? Real blood gets its colour from haemoglobin, a protein containing iron that's found in red blood cells. These cells are pretty essential for human life as they carry oxygen from our lungs to tissues all around the body.

Blood appears red because when white light falls on it, it absorbs all the colours except red, which it reflects.

Red food colouring is more of a pinky colour than blood, so you need to add green to remove the pink tinge. Green food colouring absorbs all colours apart from green. When you mix green with the red colouring it absorbs some of the red light that would have been reflected, giving your fake blood that realistic brown tinge.

More Ideas

Put some of your fake blood into a glass jar in the fridge and leave it for a few weeks, checking every couple of days. Write down your predictions - what you think will happen to the mixture. Does it behave the way you expected?

This activity came from the Edible Fake Blood activity in the Little Book of Experiments

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4. Winners - Has your name been picked out of the bag?

Last time we were offering FIVE two-packs of Flipsides. The lucky winners are Teela Firmin of Doncaster, Katrina Leigh of Kent, Ceri Scotchbrook of Cumbria, Tom Parry of London and Liam Rowland of Wiltshire, well done all!

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5. Rib Busters - Halloween Ha Ha Ha

  • What is Dracula's favourite soup? Scream of Tomato.

  • What type of coffee do vampires prefer? Decoffinated!

  • Why don't mummies take holidays? They're afraid they'll relax and unwind.

  • Who are some of the werewolves cousins? The whatwolves, the whowolves and the whenwolves.

  • A vampire bat flies back into his cave after a big night... he has blood all over his face. He perches himself on the roof to try and get some rest. Before too long the other bats smell the blood, and start to gather around him. They ask feverishly where he got the blood from. Knowing that they will not let up till he tells them “ OK, follow me!”.
    He flies out of the cave, across a valley, over a river into a dark forest. Deep in the forest he stops, all the other bats gather round in an excited frenzy.
    “OK”, says the bat, “see that big oak tree over there?”.
    “Yeah yeah” reply the other bats, drooling in anticipation.
    “Well I flipping didn't!” said the bat.

THAT’S ALL FOR NOW

You’ve been Randomised!

Send any questions, comments, jokes or experiment ideas to: randomised.news@nesta.org.uk

There is also a Randomised Archive if you want to catch up with back issues.

P.S. If you wish to unsubscribe from Randomised then reply to this email with UNSUBSCRIBE as the subject. Bye for now!

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THAT'S ALL FOR NOW

You've been Randomised!

Send any questions, comments, jokes or experiment ideas to: randomised.news@nesta.org.uk

Bye for now!