Kids, don’t try this at home

Danette Goulet

They wiggled, squiggled and jiggled all over the place.

They were molecules.

When the temperature rose, they wiggled apart. But when it dropped,

they huddled close together.

One volunteer molecule, 12-year-old Elizabeth Webber from the audience

in the Mad Science Theater at the Orange County Fair, looked like she was

doing the Charleston up there.

It was the introduction skit of the “Don’t Try This at Home” show in

the Mad Science theater.

The skit caught children’s attention by letting them know there would

be plenty of chances to get up on stage and have fun with science.

“It was cool,” said Riley Scales, 7. “ I did a dance. I was a

molecule.”

The first experiment conducted by the “Professor,” Inessa Frantouski,

21, and her wacky sidekick “Crash,” Brian Froud, 27, had the duo dipping

both a carrot and a balloon into liquid nitrogen.

This was a continued demonstration of the property of molecules.

Next was a real showstopper: Lying on a bed of nails. This trick was

used to explain surface area. Crash’s weight, distributed over a bed of

nails, didn’t hurt. But if he had laid down on one nail, he would have

yelped for sure.

The off-the-wall duo also demonstrated air pressure with the help of

an assistant Brad Brandenburg, 8.

“We put this pencil in a tube and the air pressure pushed it through

this wood,” Brad said, holding up the pencil embedded in a piece of

plywood.

The Professor explained that the air pressure in tornadoes made its

little experiment pale in comparison.

“A tornado is strong enough to put a simple drinking straw through the

side of a house,” she said.

An exploding beaker concluded the experiments, along with a Mad

Science oath taken by all the children, who promised to look at

everything with wonder and test everything.