Quote:
Originally Posted by 3.0L
My "Way back" machine is working overtime at the moment. Here's another one.
When we were kids, dad would occasionally electrocute hot dogs at the dinner table. He made the device in high school. It was simply 2 spikes sticking up through a piece pine with an AC cord and a switch. He would stick on 3 or 4 hot dogs and flip the switch. Nothing much happened for a minute or so. Steam would start coming out of the holes in the hot dogs, followed by the hot dogs swelling up. It was really fun to watch.
As to safety, dad simply told us not to touch the spikes. And we didn't.
Imagine that today.  |
When I was in 6th grade, I did a science fair project that was well planned with all the poster boards and all the research, along with my hypothesis and conclusion. About a day before the fair I made another setup to put on the same table just to have some fun, which was similar to what you described except I called it "The Glowing Pickle" using a pickle instead of a hot dog.
I sourced a bunch of random stuff from my father's 'cool boxes' in the garage such as lamp wire, and household light toggle switch. When you turn the power on the pickle would glow because of the arc through the salty pickle brine. Even at 11 years old I was smart enough to wire up a circuit breaker in-line just in case, though it was still a ridiculously dangerous setup around a ton of middle school kids. The funny thing is I won some award because of that, despite not having anything to explain the science behind it.