Jr. scientist A's experiment

A day after the anti-gravity pepper experiment where we used electrostatic charge to draw pepper to a balloon or plastic spoon, Jr. scientist A came up with a new experiment all on his own. He decided to try to catch light by rubbing a spoon against his head and holding the spoon near a light. He was off on a couple of details from our previous experiment (the spoon needs to be plastic and it only works with very light objects that can build up a charge), but it was definitely the most sophisticated experiment he's come up with to date.

Anti-gravity pepper

I didn't expect this to be such a cool effect. We put some pepper on a sheet of paper and then built up an electrostatic charge on a balloon by rubbing it against our hair (Jr. scientist A thought that was pretty funny). As we brought the balloon close to the pepper, the pepper became positively charged and started flying up off the paper and onto the balloon. As we held the balloon in place, more pepper kept flying up (and down) for a few seconds. It was so neat we kept repeating the experiment, trying to build up an electrostatic charge in different objects like plastic spoons (worked well) and cups (not so well). Jr scientist A and the senior lab members watched in amazement.