In the second semester, we were given the task of creating a hand warmer to be sold for San Marin sports spectators during cold seasons. To fill this need, we had to come up with our original design, custom materials, and creative purpose. We tested multiple types of materials, and had several trials until we coul come up with the best product For our material, we chose to use the thick coated Ziploc bag, due to the type of tests we were running, we believed that this would be the best fit and most durable. To hold the salt which would start the reaction, we split the Ziploc bag into 1/2's, so you would have the option to use two normal sized ones instead of one large one. Within those two sections were water balloons that contained the solution to react with the sodium. We chose to use Ammonium Nitrate for the salt which would react with water and cool down. We chose this method because it was something that was outside the box and interesting to experiment with. It was an expensive option, however it did give us really good results. It was able to decrease the final product to about 8 degrees Celsius, cold to the touch!. The extensive data collected is outlined in the presentation above, along with the cost of the item and calculations regarding heat produced.
Reflection:
Our project was a complete success, but there were many changes we would've implemented if we were to have more time and more resources. One thing that we did very successfully within this project was divide up the work, and stay on track with our very strict schedule. We were able to each work on the slideshow that we created as well as present an equal amount of slides during presentation for the judges. We were able to create the final product with ease, as each person in our small group had a defined job, which would all come together in the end to create the end masterpiece. We could improve the ease of creating this product, mostly because it was much more complicated then it should've been, and people outside of the main producers would have a hard time understanding how all of the pieces come together. Another improvement that we could've implemented is a better bag and sealing method. during the presentation, a very unfortunate experience occurred, the bag opened up and spilt all over our teacher. Because of this error, we would formulate a custom bag that was specifically built for our used substances.