(mellow synth music) - What time is it?

- [All] It's science time.

♪ Yo, it's science, science, science time ♪ ♪ Let's all stop and just unwind ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, here we go ♪ ♪ Learn so much, your brain explodes ♪ ♪ Lessons so cool and so fresh ♪ ♪ Feats so big you'll lose your breath ♪ ♪ Learning facts and real cool stuff ♪ ♪ Scream for more, can't get enough ♪ ♪ It's, it's science time.

♪ ♪ It's fun, you best believe ♪ ♪ Explore and learn new things ♪ ♪ Come and join me, please ♪ - I'm Mister C, and this super smart group is my science crew.

Lyla is our notebook navigator.

Alfred is our experiment expert.

Rylee is our dynamite demonstrator.

And London is our research wrangler.

Working with my team is the best and makes learning so much fun.

Actually, you should join us.

Today, we're talking about chain reactions.

What time is it?

- [All] It's science time!

(air whooshing softly) (cups rattle softly) - Oh, hi, everybody.

Welcome back to "DIY Science Time".

My name's Mister C, and I'm so glad that you're here to be part of our science crew today.

(whip lashes loudly) We're talking chain reactions and I've built a chain reaction right here and I want to give it a try.

Let's see if it works.

In three, two, one.

(cups clatter softly) (Mister C chuckles softly) I think I flicked it too hard.

(Mister C laughs softly) (cups clatter loudly) You know, that happens sometimes.

Things work and things don't work.

I'll have to give this a try at the end of the show.

So I'll have you stick around because we're gonna be doing some amazing things.

We're gonna be talking about chemical reactions, mechanical reactions.

And most importantly, we're gonna be doing all sorts of things that you can do at home, because it's time to react to some amazing science.

Are you ready?

- Yes.

- If so, check out these materials you'll need to follow along.

- Cha-cha chain reactions are so much fun and you'll need the following items to work along with the crew today.

Craft sticks, dominoes, and of course, don't forget your science notebook, so you can jot down your reactions to today's activities.

- A science notebook is a tool that every scientist should have, and it gives us a place to record all of our learning.

Taking good notes and being organized allows us to be better scientists.

A science notebook allows us to go back and review all the data and information we've gathered during our experiments.

Plus, it allows us to share results with other scientists who might be interested in learning more about what we've discovered.

Whenever you see the notebook pop up on the screen, like this, is a reminder that this is a good place for us to jot down new information.

You can see I've already added a title and a list of materials for today's activity.

Our crew is still going to have lots of information to collect and organize as we go through the experiment.

So keep your notebook handy.

Most importantly, the more you use the science notebook, the better you'll get at taking notes and recording data.

If you don't have a science notebook yet, download a copy of Mister C's science notebook from the website.

(air whooshing softly) (sticks clatter softly) (bell tolls loudly) - The first chain reaction we're gonna work with today is using craft sticks.

These pieces of wood are amazing and they're so much fun, because we can create an amazing chain reaction that is pretty super simple to make.

So to get started, you're gonna need lots of craft sticks.

I like the larger craft sticks because they're more bendy and flexible.

And also if you're building this, if you're not doing this on a hard surface, it's a little easier.

So maybe if you're working on your carpet in your living room, or somewhere with a soft floor, it's going to allow you to kind of put it together just a little bit easier.

First thing is going to be starting this.

(mellow synth music) What you'll notice is as I'm building this, it's starting to have stored energy.

These craft sticks as we bend them, they store energy, and that's what's causing this to kind of rise up like this.

That means if I let go of this right now, all of these are going to (blows out air) fall apart or shoot apart.

We don't wanna do that just yet.

We're going to continue to build our chain reaction longer and longer.

And you can see as we weave this, more and more energy gets stored on the inside.

One of the things that's really important is that you keep the sticks parallel to one another as you add them over and over.

So you can see that my sticks are parallel as I add them.

And this is going to allow you to keep extending your chain.

Just by holding this right here with my finger, I'm able to control and keep all of this together.

The moment I let this off, the tension or the stored energy from this craft stick being bent is going to cause it to come up.

And in theory, the rest will also come apart.

But if you want to, and you want to keep this and you wanna build multiple of these so you can have like a race or something like that, you can actually add a craft stick to the end.

It's a little tricky.

We bring it under, under, over.

(Mister C exclaims softly) So that purple craft stick is holding this all together.

This chain reaction is made possible by potential energy.

Potential energy is being stored in all of these craft sticks.

When I release this purple craft stick, (sticks shuffle softly) it's going to release and cause all of these bonds to break, and it's gonna go from potential to kinetic energy.

So the question is, are we ready to try our first chain reaction of the day?

So we're gonna pull this off here.

(sticks thwacks loudly) I'm gonna hold it and I'm going to release in three, two, one.

(sticks clatter loudly) (Mister C chuckles loudly) Let's try that again.

(bell dings softly) In three, two, one.

(sticks clatter loudly) (Mister C chuckles loudly) (hand claps softly) It never gets old, that is so cool.

Let's see that in slow motion.

(air pops softly) (tape whirs softly) (mellow synth music) That was so cool that.

They jumped this high off the table.

That was amazing.

I wonder what would happen if you could make like a really super, long 15-foot chain reaction.

I think that's something you should try at home.

And I think you should share pictures and photos with us using the hashtag #DIYScienceTime.

A chain reaction is a self-sustaining reaction that once started, continues without further outside influence or interference.

For example, a line of dominoes falling over after the first one has been pushed is an example of a mechanical chain reaction, or creating oxygen bubbles and elephant toothpaste after mixing different ingredients together is an example of a chemical chain reaction.

Although different, they're both similar, that's because they'll continue doing the chain reaction until there's nothing left for them to do.

(air whooshing softly) One of my favorite things to play with and build with are dominoes.

Dominoes, these tiny little wood blocks allow you to be so creative and have so much fun making chain reactions in your house.

And I'm gonna build something for you right now.

(mellow synth music) Okay.

I have it all ready.

Here we go.

Chain reaction dominoes, take one.

Let's try it.

In three, two, one.

(dominoes clatter softly) (audience exclaims softly) Oh, that's a total fail.

Oh man, it didn't work.

Ah, hold on.

(Mister C clicks tongue softly) Oh.

It's okay, that's okay.

Here we go.

I know why it did that.

So we're gonna try here.

Take two.

(device beeps softly) (dominoes clatter loudly) - [Crowd] Yay.

- Okay, it almost worked.

(laughing) It almost worked.

Oh, oh, that was so cool though.

The reaction was amazing.

They're dropping everywhere.

The reaction was amazing.

It literally did exactly what it was supposed to do in two parts.

But that's okay.

(domino clatters loudly) Because I need to move this away.

Oh, we have a little piece here.

There we go.

The cool thing about dominoes is that when you stack them up, you can place them closer together, further apart.

And I think I had some spacing issues.

In fact, I think they were a little too crammed because I had some that were hitting into the other ones, and cause it not to work in the first place.

But I was watching this and I thought to myself, self, what if we actually try to set up three lines of dominoes and space them different lengths apart to see if the speed of the dominoes changes based on how far they are apart from one another.

I think this could be a really cool experiment to kind of try together because it would allow us to see whether or not the spacing has an impact on the speed of the chain reaction.

So let me clean all this up and let's get back to it.

(air whooshing softly) (bell dings softly) Now that we're all picked up, it's time to build our three rows of dominoes with different spacing.

We're going to be using 100 centimeters as our racing distance to see which row falls the fastest.

We have orange, light blue and dark blue, and we're gonna space them accordingly.

(mellow synth music) (mellow synth music continues) I have three rows of dominoes.

They are each spaced out differently.

I tried to be consistent the best I could.

I used my little ruler here, which is marked in centimeters.

And what I did is I just went two centimeters and kept the distance the same every time.

So I started off at the one to the three, five, seven, nine, eleven and I went through that.

And then on the dark blue, I did one, four, seven, ten, and I just skipped three centimeters.

And then on the orange I skipped four centimeters.

So, in theory, this test will allow us to see which set of dominoes falls the quickest, which chain reaction will happen the fastest.

And I'm going to use this craft stick as my starter craft stick.

And what I'm going to do is I'm going to actually bring it down here and I'm just going to go forward.

Oops.

Nope, I'm gonna have to do it on this side because this side they're actually lined up together.

It makes me nervous because that's my left hand and I'm not as accurate with my left hand because I'm a rightie.

So, here we go.

(bell dings softly) Are we ready?

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, science crew members across the world.

Hopefully it works.

If not, we'll rebuild it.

(Mister C laughs softly) Here we go.

In three.

Two.

One.

(bell dings softly) (dominoes clatter softly) Oh, did you see that?

It totally was the light blue.

It went the fastest, but this one didn't work.

And I wonder why it might not have worked.

And I'm guessing that maybe the way I hit it and put the energy into the the domino, or because look how far apart they are.

Maybe I didn't have it set up accurately.

(domino clatters softly) Yup.

(dominoes clatter softly) (Mister C laughs softly) Yay, it finished across the finish line.

But what I can honestly say is that this, this one here, would've blown it out of the water.

Let's take a look at that in slow motion.

(mellow synth music) What if you try that at home?

What if you put them super duper close?

Would it actually changed the speed?

Would the same results happen, the closer they get, the faster they fall?

Give it a try and record your results in your science notebook.

(air whooshing softly) - Did you know that the small spots in the side of dominoes are called pips?

The face of each domino is divided into two squares by a line or ridge.

Each square is marked within arrangement of pips organized in patterns like the patterns on dice.

There could be as many as six pips on each side that players try to match up while playing.

Domino's is such a fun game.

Pip, pip, cheerio.

(air whooshing softly) - Fire is an example of a chemical chain reaction.

If a fire has what it needs, oxygen, fuel and heat, it will continue to burn.

But if one of these items runs out, the chemical reaction will stop.

(air whooshing softly) - We've all seen mouse traps before.

But have you ever tried combining the power of mouse traps with some ping pong balls to create a chain reaction?

Mister C is carefully setting all of the mouse traps and placing them into an aquarium.

A ping pong ball is carefully placed onto each of the mouse traps.

Mister C has one additional ping pong ball that he is going to drop into the container to start a reaction.

Do you think they're gonna all react?

Let's give it a try.

Three, two, one.

(objects clatter loudly) That was amazing.

We should check that out in slow motion.

(objects clatter loudly) (mellow synth music) - Are you ready to build the coolest toy ever that illustrates chain reactions?

Chain reactions, chain reactions.

We are going to try to build this with foam paper.

Now, I have four sheets of foam paper, actually, five sheets of foam paper.

And the foam paper has adhesive backing.

This is the trick.

This is really important for our Jacob's ladder because we're going to use the sticky parts to put it all together.

What you're going to need to do is you're going to need to cut out six pairs of foam.

And we're going to cut out three and a half inch pieces of foam by two and a half inches.

So from the edge, I'm going to go up three and a half inches.

And then I'm going to set my ruler down, and then I'm going to mark two and a half inches, two and a half, and plus two and a half is five, plus two and a half is seven and a half.

(mellow synth music) Now I need to cut this.

(paper crinkles softly) (scissors thud softly) So technically, I have three pairs or six pieces.

But I'm just going to use the white on one end and the white on the outer end.

So we need four additional colors in the middle.

So if you want take one of the existing foam pieces you already cut out and just trace it.

And that way, all of your pieces will be consistently the same size.

(paper crinkles softly) So now that I have my last piece of foam that I'm cutting, I have six pairs of colors that we're going to use as our blocks.

(air whooshing softly) (bell dings softly) So you're gonna want to cut ribbon, three strands of ribbon at four feet each.

There's one foot.

Two foot.

Three Four.

(mellow synth music) (air whooshing softly) (bell dings softly) All right.

Now to the exciting part, actually building the Jacob's ladder.

Now the pattern is really simple.

You're going to take one piece of your foam and you're gonna pull the adhesive off.

We're gonna take our first piece of ribbon and lay it right in the center, about halfway in and just touch it.

Now this is really sticky, so I'm gonna try to minimize how much I touch it.

And then on this other side, I'm going to bring this and set it right here, down a little bit, just like that.

Send that out nice and straight.

And then I'm going to place another piece just like that.

All right, so there is the bottom of our first piece, sticky side up.

I'm gonna take my second piece and I'm going to pair it and close it off.

Now that's our first block.

Now, to keep moving on, you have to take the single strand over, just like that.

And now bring the other two strands in the opposite direction, just like that.

Now, if you have another set of hands to help you out, that's great.

If you don't, be creative.

I'm gonna use these two blocks, just like that, to kind of hold that down.

And then I'm going to use this Jacob's ladder to hold that down.

And now I'm gonna keep the pattern going.

I'm gonna put this sticky side up, just like this.

And then I have to take these two, fold them over.

(mellow synth music) (tape swishes softly) (mellow synth music continues) And then this one comes over this direction.

(paper thwacks softly) It's really sticky.

(Mister C laughs loudly) It's really sticky.

We're gonna keep building it and we'll try to fix that after I put on the other side, because it'll be able to stick to something.

All right.

(paper crinkles softly) Sometimes that happens when you're doing science, right.

- [Children] Yes.

- Okay, so I'm going to place this piece back in where it tore out.

(mellow synth music) And I basically was able to fix it without any problem.

All right, now that we have that, we're gonna flip this one over, this direction.

I'm gonna flip this side this way.

(mellow synth music) (paper thwacks softly) (tape swishes softly) (mellow synth music continues) (tape swishes softly) (paper thwacks softly) (tape swishes softly) (mellow synth music continueS) (table thuds softly) (mellow synth music continues) (tape swishes softly) (paper thwacks softly) (mellow synth music continues) (paper thwacks softly) (mellow synth music continues) (paper thwacks softly) (mellow synth music continues) (device thrills softly) (bell dings softly) (mellow synth music continues) (device thrills softly) (bell dings softly) All right, so we're to our last piece of foam.

I've tried really hard to keep things lined up.

It's really tough, but that's half the fun, is getting it to be perfect.

And now we have it.

I'm gonna cut off this piece here.

I'm gonna cut off these strips here.

(scissors thud softly) And the moment of truth.

The first.

Okay, okay.

It, oh, it has a lot of of slack.

Let's see what it does.

Oh, that's impressive (laughing).

It worked.

All right, let's see if we can get it to go again.

Oh.

(mellow synth music continues) All right, so I think what needs to happen is it needs the ribbon to be a little like broken in.

And I think once we get that, it'll work a little bit better.

So I think the more we use it, the better it's going to work.

All right.

One of the, (laughing).

Okay, so it's not really, looking at this, my lines aren't that straight.

And I think, you can do it.

Okay, it's working, but it's not working well.

I think if I would've been able to line my ribbon up a little bit better.

You got it.

Okay, it's starting to work better the more we're using it.

(Mister C laughs softly) Or not.

(air whooshing softly) (bell dings softly) Making mistakes is part of learning, and it not being perfect is okay.

It's part of the learning process.

And here, you have this sort of, (laughing) it's really crooked.

But it's still wants to work.

Oh, go, go.

There you go.

(crowd cheering loudly) We got our Jacob's ladder.

(foam thwacking softly) (laughing) It's not working.

- This next reaction will put some spring it's your step.

Place two craft sticks on opposite sides of a block and rubber band the the end of both sides.

So the crafts sticks don't pull off.

This is your starter block.

You're going to repeat the pattern for the remaining blocks, but instead of using a rubber band to close the second side, you are going to slide the crafts sticks into the first set of crafts sticks.

This will prevent it from springing apart.

Make your reaction as big as you can.

Once you're ready, remove the rubber band from the first block.

Three, two, one.

(sticks clatter loudly) That was spectacular.

(audience laughing softly) (sticks clatter loudly) (crowd cheering loudly) - That looked like so much fun, Rylee.

You should have seen the reaction on your face when those craft sticks flew all over the room.

(Lyla laughs softly) We've been busy today talking about reactions and trying so many experiments.

I feel so inspired seeing the contraptions built by Rube Goldberg.

I really want to build one of my own.

I've added notes about dominoes and mouse traps.

I also wrote down the steps we used to make the Jacob's ladder.

Now that I think about it, our science experiments today are creating their own chain reactions.

All of you at home are going to try some experiments, and that will cause your friends to try experiments, and that will cause their friends to try experiments.

And before you know it, everyone is trying science.

How awesome is that?

Who's going to be a part of your science chain reaction?

I'm so glad you're here and are part of mine.

- What an amazing day learning about chain reactions.

Craft sticks, dominoes, Jacob's ladder, one thing led to another and we had so much fun figuring it all out.

And now I have one last monster chain reaction for you.

That's right.

This is my contraption.

It's a chain reaction machine.

But before I do this, I wanna remind you that if you haven't done so yet, hop online and download your science notebook.

This right here allows you to keep track of all of your experiments, all of the results, and more importantly, allows you to work with a friend or a crew member to understand what you did in the past and how you can improve your things, specifically things like this.

So are you ready to give it a try?

- [Children] Yes.

- I think so.

It starts with a pendulum, goes down a ramp and the rest, if it works, (laughing).

Here we go in three, two, one.

(ball shuffles softly) (cup rattles softly) (air whooshing loudly) - [Crowd] Wow.

- Yes.

Success.

This right here is a chain reaction machine.

We have a ramp, we have a platform, it knocked it over.

We've got the seesaw pulley system here, which brought up my little friend, Mister C. So keep learning, keep having fun, keep exploring.

And remember, science is wherever you are.

(mellow rhythmic clapping) (mellow synth music) ♪ It's science time, time, time, time, time, time ♪ (tape whirs softly) ♪ It's science time, time, time, time, time, time ♪ (device thrills softly) - Ping pong ball, mouse trap.

(device beeps softly) Ow, I just kicked my knee so hard.

(Mister C chuckles softly) Ping pong ball mouse trap react, yikes.

I think there's a reaction in my mouth.

You'll have to give it a, okay, there it is.

You'll have to give it a try.

It sounds so weird.

You'll have to give it a try.

(person speaking away from mic) Give it a try, thank you.

(Mister C chuckles softly) We're gonna be talking mechanical, chemical.

(device beeps softly) In three, two, one.

(cups clatter loudly) Oh-ho-ho-ho-ho, that was so cool.