Final Results.

Ok, so this is what my little babies (LOL) looked like after they had dried.

I took some pictures on the morning before I went to school:

The one which had 25mL of vinegar. I accidentally labelled it as 20 but you get my drift 8]
As you can see, it obtained a distinctive yellow colour but hadn't turned all the way yellow.

The 50mL one. It has no yellow colouring effect and is harder than the aforementioned blob ;]

The 100mL of vinegar blob. It's pretty much white and was harder than both of the previous ones. It also had a more distinctive smell. (yeah I actually smelt this stuff)

Then when I came back home (like at 8:00?) I took a picture of all of them so you can directly compare them

Um yeah, just ignore the stuff on my table. The most yellow looking one is the one with 25mL, the whitest one was the 100mL. The 25mL was the softest and the 100mL one the hardest when I applied pressure to them with my finger. The 50mL casein was of course harder than the 25mL, but softer than 100mL. The 25mL vinegar casein also had a relatively faint smell of vinegar, while 50mL had a more distinct smell and the 100mL with the smelliest odour.

Well, I'm glad I've finally compelted my experiment, now all I need to do is write it up. Yay~
I still have my casein in my room, but I don't want to throw it out. T___T

FINAL EXPERIMENT

WARNING: IMAGE HEAVY POST

Ok, my conscious really feels so bad now for delaying the experiment so much. Gah, FML.
Anyway, lets hope this isn't a total failure like last time. ^^ and if it is, I'll just do it again


Update~
WOOT. SUCCESS HAS BLESSED US.

There was such a big difference after I changed my method increasing the amount of milk and lowering the amount of vinegar. I'm so happy. You can tell how much casein was made just by looking at the bowl.

PICTURES COME LATER, I'M SO TIRED RIGHT NOW T___T

Because I'm so awesome I again took a picture of my milk heating.

You can see in this picture that the little clumps of casein are much bigger than the ones I got before :D
I'm pretty sure this has to do with the ratio of vinegar to milk. But you can find that in my report. Mwahaha.

This is what the casein looked like when I put it on the cloth to drain. In case you didn't know what I meant by using a cloth to drain the water.

This looks really lulzy, but it's what I meant by tying the cloth around the tap so that the water could drain 8D

Woot! Look at how much casein I got this time around. ^^;;
Oh and I learnt from my mistakes. I used gloves so that my hands wouldn't be smelly. I hope it didn't affect the results though... >.<''

Also, there was minimal loss of casein this time (none went down the drain) but some tiny parts were still stuck on the cloth and in the bowl, which I couldn't get out. Inevitable error ;-;

I also found that some milk stuck to the bottom of the saucepan. I don't know why though D:

What my casein looks like almost right after I made it. They all look relatively similar now, but I found that the one with the least vinegar (25mL) was harder to squish around than the ones with higher vinegar content.


Also, I decided to tabulate the information before it sets (i.e. right after all the water has drained) and after I've let it set. This is because some of the differences in properties might change and it might be hard differentiating the differences :D

Possible errors: measuring amount of milk, measuring amount of vinegar, heating of the milk, drainage of the amount of water, collection of the casein from the filtering device, the differences in shape could change the aeration in the solid affecting the way it is set, my personal errors

Some more research~

How shameful of me to do it so late. amirite? Ah well, I tend to work well under pressure apparently so here we go!
For my introduction, as I mentioned before, I wanted to briefly describe what milk was... I seriously don't know how to describe it myself, besides saying that its a white liquid that tastes nice. LOL.
The thing that came up when I typed it in in Google was "a white nutritious liquid secreted by mammals and used as food by human beings" and I was like, obviously. (wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)
Anyway, then I'd talk about more stuff on milk and expand onto what casein is and why the reaction happens.
Then stuff about other experiments and afterwards, supposedly the aim and hypothesis should be subtly put in.

I need to learn how to reference. Like really badly. Did we get taught in class? I can't remember if we did. Oh well. Time for Google. -cracks knuckles-

Oh and seeing as I am really tired today, I'm doing my experiment on Monday (public holiday FTW) or tomorrow. I'm such a bad person. I'll regret it later though.

Another Delay...

I seem like such a slack student T_____T

But it's seriously not my fault~ Remember how I said I'd do my experiment on Tuesday? Well, I got sick on Monday night with the aforementioned conditions that my siblings experienced so I couldn't do it. I also missed out on the cover sheet omg fml so hard for the report. So I need to see Ms Zhang. ASAP.
Or maybe I'll just photocopy someone elses. Ms Z, you don't need to sign off my name or something when you give it to me do you...?

ANYWAY, I'm going to do my experiment on Saturday now[after I finish my coaching tests ;-;].

Risk Assessment -gulp-

So, a little birdy told me that we had to write up a risk assessment. I can't really think of anything that is too fdangerous about my experiment. Eating/drinking milk, vinegar and casein isn't really that bad for you (I think) it's just that it might not taste too nice LOL. Which reminds me of that year 8 or 9 experiment where we had to taste stuff like vinegar on our tongues and I was the test subject because Emilyn an Jamie bullied me into it. -.-''

Anyway, I know that boiling milk is potentially dangerous as well as pouring it into a bowl. Yes, very dangerous

Identify: boiling milk, stove
Assess: is able to cause burns or scalding to skin
Control: do not place hands near stove, carefully pour milk into bowl
Disposal: milk is able to be poured down sink

SUPER IMPROVED METHOD

Equipment

·        1x spoon

·        1x large strip of cloth

·        1x saucepan

·        1x thermometer

·        1x measuring cup

·        1x ceramic bowl

·        350mL of vinegar

·        190mL of full cream milk

Procedure

·        Place the strip of cloth over the sink and the ceramic bowl on the bench.

·        Pour 20mL of vinegar into the measuring cup.

·        Heat the 200mL of milk in the saucepan to a temperature of 50°C.

·        Pour the heated milk into the ceramic bowl.

·        Add the vinegar to the milk in the bowl.

·        Stir the mixture with a spoon for one minute.

·        Pour the contents of the bowl carefully onto the cloth.
-Grab the corners of the cloth and tie the cloth around the tap so that the liquid is able to drain at the bottom.
-Wait for 5 minutes for the liquid to drain.

·        Remove the cloth from the tap.
-Gather the solids in the cloth and mould into a relatively round ball.

·        Place in the sun to dry for one day.

·        Tabulate information on the resultant substance including: weight, hardness, colour, flexibility and smell.

·        Repeat experiment replacing 20mL of vinegar with 0mL, 50mL and 100mL of vinegar.

Not doing my experiment yet...

Why? Because my brother and sister are currently diarrhea-ing and vomiting all over our house and setting up a smelly experiment in the kitchen wouldn't exactly be helpful to my parents, especially as they went to the hospital last night at 12:30 and left me alone at home. So, for now I'm just going to have to write up my report and do the experiment later. Maybe Tuesday would be a good day... or Wednesday. I can't believe how soon the SRP is due ;-;

Ok, so for the method all I have to do is change my blog's method to passive past tense in paragraph form. Which reminds me that I have to change the method again so that I can use the cloth as a strainer rather than the normal strainers. So this will be the third time writing my method out. Joy.

Need to Start Writing my SRP soon....

I'm seriously so screwed. But hopefully I won't leave it until the last minute. I've decided that I'll redo my experiment on the weekend or on Friday night.
Now, however I need to write the whole report up!

Firstly there's the abstract which is a brief summary of what I did.Which shouldn't be too hard seeing as I didn't have much to start off with anyway
Then I should write my introduction... I'll put it in dot point here and write it up in full for my report. :D

Explain what casein is.
Explain why milk reacts this way when vinegar is added to it?
Say what uses casein has (i.e making mishti, cottage cheese, yoghurt etc)

And the rest I will think about and add later...

My Awesome Revelation

Long time no post man. LOL.
Anyway, remember how I found out that my experiment is actually used for making curry stuff? Well, my aunty happens to do this experiment practically every week. Why? Because she sells mishti. Mwahahaha. So I asked her about my experiment and I found out that...

Too much vinegar = the end product is too hard and smells really bad but there is also more
Too little vinegar = end product doesn't form too well, smell isn't as bad but not that much is made

Also, when I told her how much milk I used, she told me that you could get less than a hand full of casein. Well, now I know how much I lost down the drain. And why she has humongous pots in her house.
Furthermore, I delved into the deepest pits of my memory until I remembered my parents making mishti, and I really wanted to help. Anyway, the main point is that when they filtered the casein, they used a cloth to drain out all of the water, so that the water could completely come out and no casein would be lost. Now I know why a normal strainer didn't work. x.x

So... all that's left is for me to do my experiment again? Oh wait, I have to write up my method, AGAIN. Waaaaaah~

----- I just realised, do I list my aunty in my a references, bibliography or acknowledgments? I'm leaning towards acknowledgment...

Something which I should have mentioned....

Ok well, you know how I was doing the experiment before? My parents happened to see me (well, more specifically my dad) and he asked me why I was making some of this curry dessert thing called mishti. And I was giving him the O-o face and then I realised that it was true. Then he started laughing at me.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure if you're not of Bengali/Indian/etc background you'll have no idea what it is, so I tried researching it.
Well, in Bengali, "mishti" literally means "sweet" in English. You can have a large variation in the way they are made so you can get different shapes, colours and tastes.
For example, the ones below are white and black(yes I know they're not black but we just call them that) mishtis.

I don't know what it looks like to non-Bengali people, but omg, this looks so yummy. X.X
I searched up some recipes for it on the internet and instead of using vinegar, they use lemon juice. Which also has acidic properties so naturally casein would form. (http://indianfood.about.com/od/sweetsanddesserts/r/chamcham.htm)

So, I thought that this is one of the things that I could put in my introduction. I could say that my research could help maximise the quality of the mishti? Or something like that. 8D

--------- I just realised when I use the term "curry" I mean people like Bengalis/Indians/Pakistanis. I'm not sure if this is racist, but I use it all the time and I know heaps of other people who use it too... Anyway, just know that I'm not reffering tothe curry that you eat with rice. Yeah, that spicy thing. Totally does not go with dessert. LOL.

What the Casin Looks Like..

Okay, I'M sorry for not updating this earlier but here is what the casein looks like.

I put it on a tissue on my table in my room. As you can see it there is like, seriously NOTHING.  And maybe I did the experiment wrong but it doesn't even seem like plastic... it's yellow and hard but not really like plastic to me, more like some type of hard dough. Anyway, I'm treating my failed experiment as a "practice experiment" in preparation for the real thing. Hopefully my new one won't be such a disaster!!

New method

Equipment

·        1x spoon

·        1x strainer

·        1x saucepan

·        1x thermometer

·        1x measuring cup

·        1x ceramic bowl

·        500mL of vinegar

·        1L of full cream milk

Procedure

·        Place the strainer over the sink and the ceramic bowl on the bench.

·        Pour 100mL of vinegar into the measuring cup.

·        Heat the 200mL of milk in the saucepan to a temperature of 50°C.

·        Pour the heated milk into the ceramic bowl.

·        Add the vinegar to the milk in the bowl.

·        Stir the mixture with a spoon for one minute.

·        Pour the contents of the bowl carefully into the strainer.

·        Gather the solids in the strainer and mould into a round ball.

·        Place in the sun to dry for one day.

·        Tabulate information on the resultant substance including: weight, hardness, colour, flexibility and smell.

·        Repeat experiment replacing 100mL of vinegar with 0mL, 50mL, 100mL and 200mL of vinegar.

Tying up the Loose Ends

Ok so, I think I've established that after my super fail experiment, I need to change my experiment a bit lot. I need:

• A better strainer. Like one with super thin holes
• More milk + vinegar. The last batch produced so little casein =.=''
• A noseplug
• A better method

Oh, but I don't really want to write up another method! I spent so much time on my last one~ Ah well, I'll make some tweaks here and there... ><;;

OMG KILL ME RIGHT NOW.

Ok, so I just came back from my experiment.

IT WAS AN ABSOLUTE DISASTER

The casein. Smelt. So. BAD. It was like a mixture between urine and vinegar. I felt like dying. Anyway, I'll just run through what happened.
I can't believe I was so happy at the beginning. I had no idea was I was in for.

I even took a picture of the milk heating. Even I call that sad now. ><''
I let it reach 50 degrees and them I poured it into the bowl, then I poured in 50mL of vinegar. (I wanted to start off from a middle number)
Then, the smell started getting to my nose. It was horrendous. Nevertheless, because I was an awesome scientist I continued on. I stirred the stuff for a minute (I'm really tempted to called the "stuff" something else starting with an s) and it came out so gross. It looked like vomit to be honest. I seriously thought that I would have much more casein than this minuscule amount.

You can see that there are only like, a few flecks in there. Then I saw that no more casein would form and put it into the strainer. The thing was, the bowl was kind of hot, and the smell was so nauseating that the bowl kind of slipped and a lot of the casein fell into the sink. I still persevered and I tried collecting the casein and put it onto paper towels. The sadder thing was that only the little flecks came out so I couldn't take them off the towels.

I did, however get the little clumps which you can see on the bottom left hand side in the above picture. So I squished those together and made it into a ball and not a "flat rectangular shape", because seriously, I knew by then this would not be a legitimate experiment. I put the casein on my hand and took this photo:

My hands smell really bad now.
LOL you can see the camera strap!


Anyway, after that there was a lot of cleaning up I had to do. I wiped the sink and benches, and washed my equipment. I also sprayed the kitchen with air freshener. Stuff the food.

This was such an epic fail. I might post later on how many mistakes/errors there were in here, but right now, I'm seriously way too tired. G'NIGHT!

Before I start my Experiment

So before I started I thought that I would take pictures of my awesome vinegar and milk.

HOME BRAND IS DA BOMB. not






I'm sorry to my other equipment, because they're not good enough to be photographed separately. Ah well, I'll photograph them later while I'm doing my experiment.
I have everything ready and I'm about to do it now so wish me luck~ (although you're probably reading this after I actually did my experiment)



If you look really closely, you can see a picture of me when I was little with my mum ;D

Aim, Hypothesis and Referencing?

Aim: To investigate the effects on milk when vinegar is added to it (this probably isn't going to be my real one but I should make up one now for this blog's sake)
Hypothesis: When more vinegar is added to milk, it produces greater quantities of casein.

I used these websites to create my own method of making casein:
http://www.sciencebob.com/experiments/plasticmilk.php
http://www.csiro.au/resources/plastic-milk-activity.html

Explaining the Method

Well this post is solely dedicated to explaining my experiment a.k.a dumbing it down. So it's just a way of me reminding myself why I did certain things and identifying controlled variables and stuff for my report. 

First I set up my equipment, so that the milk doesn't lose its heat while I prepare my other equipment, like measuring my vinegar. After the milk reaches approximately 50 degrees celcius (the temp. of the milk is an unavoidable error/inaccuracy which I have to write in my report) I pour the milk into the ceramic bowl and quickly add the vinegar to the bowl of milk. Again, I have to do it quickly so that the milk doesn't cool down, although if I do it too fast I might spill some or burn myself. Should that be in the risk assessment? Oh dear, I totally forgot we had to do one. Or do we? O-O
Anyway, then I use a spoon (do I have to say if its metal or wooden and if it effected the experiment or not? kill me.) to stir the milk and vinegar so that they'll mix and form the casein. I have to do it for one minute for every experiment because it's a controlled variable as stirring it more might effect the end result.
Then whatever is in the bowl should be put in the strainer over the sink, so that I can get the casein. I'll take the solids (I wonder if it'll be hot or not?) and try to mould it into a thin rectangular shape so that it dries faster in the sun.
Then I think I need to record what the time is, and I probably should have said that in my method, but write it down somewhere so that I know when I should take it out of the sun. I think another unavoidable error might be how much sun each of the plastics get because I can't watch over it 24/7.
Then I'd take the casein away and tabulate the information with what I think might be the dependent variables. I'm keeping my options open at the moment.
Finally I repeat the experiment with different amounts of vinegar, to see how the dependent variables change. Did I need a hypothesis and aim as well? I'll write that in my next post. 
I said that I had to repeat the experiment with no vinegar because it should be my control group one. I don't think that's the right term, but I learnt that you should do something like that just in case it does it my itself... pardon me if I don't make sense. And Ms Zhang I feel sorry for you for having to read all of this. ^^

Method

Okay, so I found out in class that we had to make a suitable method for our experiment and do it in dot points and in present or future tense. I choose present because that's what we usually do. ^^;;

Equipment

·        1x spoon

·        1x strainer

·        1x saucepan

·        1x thermometer

·        1x measuring cup

·        1x ceramic bowls

·        250mL of vinegar

·        500mL of full cream milk

Procedure

·        Place the strainer over the sink and the ceramic bowl on the bench.

·        Pour 25mL of vinegar into the measuring cup.

·        Heat the 100mL of milk in the saucepan to a temperature of 50°C.

·        Pour the heated milk into the ceramic bowl.

·        Add the vinegar to the milk in the bowl.

·        Stir the mixture with a spoon for one minute.

·        Pour the contents of the bowl into the strainer.

·        Gather the solids in the strainer and mould into thin rectangular shapes.

·        Place in the sun to dry for one day.

·        Tabulate information on the resultant substance including: weight, hardness, colour, flexibility and smell.

·        Repeat experiment replacing 25mL of vinegar with 0mL, 50mL, 75mL and 100mL of vinegar.

Climate Graph

So late... ah well, at least its up ^^

I'd just like to say... PAINT FTW.

Why does the Milk Curdle when I add Vinegar?

Well, I knew that I had to answer this question, but seriously, the chemical bonds and everything look so complicated. Seriously, I went on this site: http://www.itisacqui.it/sitob/formagette/curdling.htm to find out what happens, but it's so hard to understand. ;-;
Anyway, I might ask Ms Zhang for help on it ^^''
Until then, I have a diagram. Of casein.

I'm not gonna lie, I have NO IDEA as to what the labels on the picture are.
All will reveal itself in the due course of time... 

Anyway, I went on yahoo answers and google to try and find out the answer to the question that is on the title of this post.
I'm not even sure if we're allowed to use yahoo answers. LOL.
Ah well, I'll just trust the people with a professional looking profile picture. AHAHAH.


One person said "The hydrogen ions from vinegar (5% water solution of acetic acid) react with -NH2 groups of lysine and asparagine to clot the milk and drive proteins out of solultion."
Um, yeah, so what is lysine, asparagine (related to asparagus?) and MINUS NH2? I understand the NH2 part but why the minus?!! There was also a typo in 'solultion'. Now I know why teachers don't like yahoo answers.

On to the next website. A cooking website. Don't you just love my variation in sources. Not. I should be using books or something shouldn't I? Too bad, it's the 21st century
According to Shirley Corriher on  http://www.finecooking.com/why-vinegar-curdles-milk.aspx "Acid on protein causes the protein to coagulate, because the acid is actually "cooking" the protein strands. When vinegar curdles milk, what you get is a dairy version of scrambled eggs." and that "When in doubt, a little cornstarch is always good insurance to prevent curdling."
Well, at least I can understand this answer... No, I still don't know what "coagulate" is. Why isn't this taught in school? -cries- Anyway, next time I am going to do the following because I'm really tired right now and need a shower:

• Find out why milk curdles when I add vinegar? (what I should have answered here)
• Learn what coagulate is
• Ask Ms Zhang for help
• Try and find more stuff on what happens when I add more vinegar to my milk (there are seriously NO websites with this!!!)

Different Types of Milk

So, for my experiment, obviously I'm going to do more than one experiment, because otherwise it would be too easy and I wouldn't be able to make very many conclusions. I think I said that first I'll do experiments where the independent variable is how much vinegar is added to the milk. My second "lot" of experiments is going to be with a fixed about of vinegar but with different types of milk. So this is research on the the second experiement.

It's said that whole milk is recommended for children, teenagers and body builders, and people trying to lose weight should drink skim milk which is actually funny . This is because, according to differencebetween.net (http://www.differencebetween.net/object/difference-between-skimmed-milk-and-whole-milk/) whole milk has all of the fat from the original cow milk, and usually, there is 3.5% of milk fat** for every cup of milk. However, in skim milk, there is a skimming process where as much fat as possible is taken out. This leaves the skim milk with 0.5% of milk fat, because obviously, not all of the milk fat is taken out.

The fat from skim milk is taken out by centrifuges. (http://www.answerfitness.com/tag/whole-milk-versus-skim-milk/) (hmm. this term seems so familiar. oh yes, year 8 FTW) Based on personal knowledge, centrifuges spin a liquid around and the excess solid is taken away. I'm pretty sure this is also how blood is put into a centrifuge and thats how you can see the plasma, red bloods cells and white blood cells.

 The fact that whole milk has more fat in it than skim milk means it's tastier. Obviously. I hate skim milk. It already smells, so curdling it will make it even worse.

I should really start my experiment.

**is the fatty portion of milk. wikied the definition....^^ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfat)

SRP update...

I feel so bad, I haven't updated this in so long. I had to read over my posts to see what I had done in relation to my experiment... and realised why I got such a bad mark D: Anyway, I'll try harder from now on.

Ok, so I did a little more research and I found out some really interesting stuff. I might repeat some stuff but it's worth repeating.

Well, from the mixing of the vinegar and milk, you get casin as I've said before, and it occurs when the protein in the milk meets the acid in the vinegar. True plastics, called polymers, are a different in the way that they can be solids or liquids, and the molecules can chain themselves together, which is why you can get stuff like slime.
I got this information from:
http://www.sciencebob.com/experiments/polymer.php

On this website (http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/sci/plasticmilk.html) it says that the chemical reaction separated the milk into two parts, the curds which is the solid and the liquid which is the whey. Also, on this website, kids as young as 6 did this experiment, which made me feel really bad. But they said that it felt like "wet playdough" and "smelt really bad". Something in my research with variables finally came up and a person said "
The skim milk smelt the worst, the 1% was the best we thought, 2% and whole milk produced the most, but was the bumpiest. " I have no idea what they're going on about with the percentages but I can conclude that whole milk might create more casein. I am seriously wondering why. Another thing to research.

Another thing I found out was that Little Miss Muffet was really eating this, in her nursery rhyme. This is because curds and whey as mentioned above can be made from milk by the help of a coagulant (something that helps cause a transformation of a liquid for example into or as if into a soft, semisolid, or solid mass). I saw the pictures of it and it looks seriously gross...

Um yeah. I'm SO glad I live in the 21st century, because people actually had to eat that stuff back in the day when their milk spoilt. O_O''
Casein was also manufactured into buttons, crochet hooks and knitting needles between the World War 1 & 2.  After World War II advances in technology made casein plastics obsolete.

Templates T.T

I wanted to change the templates... but then I realised that it would look different to the screenshot I gave to Ms Zhang. D:
I'll have to wait until she's marked it then. I am itching to put it on. ;D

I should start conducting my experiment asap. I realised that we missed out 2nd SRP period in a row. ANDOMG, I still haven't buried my plastic bags squares for the experiment
I will do my experiment/s. Soon. I promise. I still need a Coles plastic square though.

Forgot a Variable~ ^^;;

I forgot to include the controlled variables.  They are:

• the temperature of the milk(when the vinegar is added)
• the temperature at which the casein is allowed to settle
• the amount of milk
• the amount of sun the casein recieves (they need to be put into the sun to dry)
• the amount of time the casein is allowed to settle

I can't think of anymore. T.T
Anyway, I hope that's enough. I don't even know when I'm supposed to hand my blog in tomorrow... Ms Zhang, why'd you have to be away? ;D

Variables...

It was so hard to think of the dependent variable... but I figured that it would be the amount of casein produced or the hardness of the casein. Because I haven't done my experiment yet I really wouldn't know how the casein changes when more vinegar is added. So hopefully I can change it when I actually do it? :D
The independent variable is going to be the amount of vinegar (for my first 'batch' of experiments).
Now I must study for my science atomic theory test. May the force be with me. (That would have been funnier if I had Force and Motion as my topic but anyway, I've found a new joke to use on Ivy and Davian. Hohoho.)

Previous Project Ideas

Well, here is my promised post from yesterday~
These are the stuff that I was contemplating on doing for my assignment:

The absorbency of nappies and whether different types of water such as vinegar water, salt water or sugar water would hold the same amount in the nappy. I wanted to do this originally because I have a younger brother and sister who wear nappies. So I could also test the different between boys and girls nappies even though we all know the difference and my brother wears my sister's nappies sometimes anyway . But then I realised that if I were to repeat my experiment a few times, I would have to use a lot of nappies. And trust me nappies cost a lot.

Then I thought of doing how yeast grows under aerobic and anaerobic conditions, and how this affects them. I chose not to do this because... it was too hard and uninteresting (that's actually one of the criteria I think :D). I would have had to do so much more research and planning. Its kind of hard to understand the concepts of it and my poor little brain was experiencing technical difficulties just trying to understand the experiment.


Then I saw the "milk into plastic" experiment. It actually sounded interesting and not too hard. But then Ms Zhang told me all the ways I could do it... and it sounded hard. Haha. Anyway, it would have been a bit boring if it was too easy I suppose. ;]

"Project Designs"?!?!

Ok well, everyone told me that this project designs was about whether you thought about different ideas for your SRP. I thought it was about whether or not you had thought of different ways to do the experiment...
Anyway. I will update this blog with what my ideas were before milk & plastic later. I'm too tired to think scientifically right now. -points to time published- XD
But on another hand, I wonder if my blog is too formal and scientific. I looked at other people's and they seem more laid back than me. How sad. D:

Materials I need

I'll need to look back on this when I need to go shopping for my materials. For the first experiment that I'll do, I'll have the vinegar as the independent variable and dependent variable... I still have to decide how I'm going to measure the plastics (although I think I should measure its softness, pliability and maybe colour). So I think I'll need:

A whole packet/bottle of vinegar (is vinegar a solid like salt or a liquid?!?!)
1 x  bottle of Pura full cream milk (I already have this so I'm specifying the brand and everything)
1 x  strainer or cloth
1 x  saucepan (who doesn't have one though...)
1 x  spoon

Obviously all of them are household items. Which is good because that's what the experiment is supposed to be conducted with. YAY.
I'll cross the stuff out as I go. :D

More Research!

I looked arouns various sites, and of course they all have different procedures. For example the one on WikiHow (http://www.wikihow.com/Make-%22Plastic%22-out-of-Milk) says that I should microwave the milk. But most other methods like this one (http://www.instructables.com/id/Homemade-Plastic/) say that I should boil the milk to a certain point. I'm pretty sure boiling the milk would be more accurate, as the microwave could have some small errors. Also, it doesn't really seem scientific to use a microwave...

Casein is actually used in cheeses to keep it together and in glue! It's also used for numerous other things, such as paints, soap making and cement, as shown by this website: http://chestofbooks.com/home-improvement/repairs/painting/Paint-Making-Color-Grinding/Part-V-Casein-And-Cold-Water-Paints-Chapter-XXXI-Origin-A.html.

Some properties of casein are that it is tough, flammable, resistant to water and has poor dimensional stability (I'm not exactly sure what this means, but I think it's the ability of something to stay in its original dimensions when it's being changed. I will ask Ms Zhang when I see her next!) with info taken from http://books.google.com.au/books?id=0g9QjxsbqmUC&pg=PA136&lpg=PA136&dq=casien+plastic+heat+chemical&source=web&ots=u7KLwl6eWg&sig=9V40234r-SgMztftGpwzPYDrQgI&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#v=onepage&q=&f=false

One last thing. Ms Zhang mentioned that I have to put in water with the milk and everything for my experiment but it's not in any of the methods I've encountered! Maybe she accidentally said the wrong thing. :D

Planning for Planning the Experiment

Well, today I got confirmation from Ms Zhang for my experiment! She told me I could do it but to watch out for my variables. Also, I could make different sections of my method so that I can test different variables.There's so much to write about. D:

The first experiment I'd do would be on changing the amount of vinegar, and whether this would affect the casein in any way. (I still have to decide on how I'm going to measure the 'changes' in the casein though...) Apparently, I also have to change the amount of water corresponding to the amount of vinegar I have so that they equate to 100ml. For example, if I put in 20ml of vinegar, I need 80ml of water, 30ml of vinegar needs 70ml of water etc.

In the next experiment, I would keep the amount of vinegar constant, and change the type of milk, to see if that has any effects on the casein. There are so many different types of milk but I suppose I'll have to use at least 3 or 4 types for my experiment. All of the same brand I suppose (controlled variable!). I'm going to have to drink a lot of leftover milk -gulp- (no pun intended).

Researching the Experiment

I have to know what the method (equipment and procedure) of the experiment is, so I need a type of guide that tells me what the basic method for my experiment is. Of course, I'll be changing this when I actually do my own method in passive past tense and all that jazz.
Seeing as I don't know how to do references or proper bibliography yet I learnt it in year 8 though.. oops , I'll just make a link to the website. =D

http://www.csiro.au/resources/plastic-milk-activity.html

From another website, people actually explain why the milk turned into 'casein.' Apparently they use this stuff in cheese. Kind of gross but hey, it's awesome science. -cough cough-

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/chem00/chem00367.htm

My Experiment Ideas

I had numerous ideas for my project and I finally decided on one today. I have to get it checked with Ms Zhang though! I'm hoping that I'll be able to be perform an experiment in which a type of plastic can be made from milk and some vinegar. How awesome is that? It'll be heaps of fun. :D

Hello World

;D