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Science Snacks
Science activity that demonstrates fluid pressure and buoyancy

Condiment Diver

To paraphrase French philosopher René Descartes: "I sink, therefore I am."

Changes in fluid pressure affect the buoyancy of a Cartesian diver made from a condiment packet. The diver floats, sinks, or hovers in response to pressure changes.


Grade Bands: 
K-2
3-5
6-8
9-12
Subject: 
Chemistry
Materials & Matter
Earth Science
Oceans & Water
Physics
Keywords: 
density
buoyancy
pressure
NGSS and EP&Cs: 
PS
PS1
PS2
CCCs
Cause and Effect
Energy And Matter
Stability and Change

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Tools and Materials

  • Cup
  • Water
  • Several squeeze-­condiment packets such as soy sauce, ketchup, or mustard
  • Clear plastic bottle with screw-on cap

Assembly

  1. Fill a cup with water and drop in your packets one by one to see how they’ll work (see photo). The best packets to use in this activity are ones that just barely float.
     
     
  2. After you’ve found the proper packet, fill an empty, clear plastic bottle to the very top with water. Shove your unopened condiment packet into the plastic bottle. Replace the cap and you’re done!

To Do and Notice

Squeeze the plastic bottle to make the diver sink, and release it to make it rise.


What's Going On?

The key to making this work is to choose a condiment-packet diver that barely floats. This works because, while many sauces are denser than water, it’s actually the air bubble sealed inside the packet that determines whether it will sink or swim.

Squeezing the bottle increases pressure on the condiment packet, compressing the air bubble inside. When the higher pressure compresses the air in the packet, the packet displaces less water, thus decreasing its buoyancy and causing it to sink. When you release the sides of the bottle, the pressure decreases and the air inside the packet expands once again. The packet’s buoyancy increases and the diver rises.

The Greek philosopher Archimedes was the first person to notice that the upward force that water exerts on an object, whether floating or submerged, is equal to the weight of the volume of water that the object displaces. That is, the buoyant force is equal to the weight of the displaced water.


Going Further

Change the shape of the diving bottle and you can get an additional effect. If you use a thin, flat plastic bottle (like from shampoo or mouthwash), squeezing the differently shaped sides changes what happens inside the bottle.

Choose a diver that just barely floats, put it in a bottle filled completely with water, and put the cap on. Squeeze on the wide sides of the bottle and you make the volume inside smaller—the pressure inside the bottle goes up, compressing the air bubble in the diver, and the diver sinks and remains on the bottom (as it does in the preceding activity). Squeeze on the narrow sides of the bottle and you make the volume inside larger: The pressure inside the bottle goes down, allowing the air bubble in the diver to expand, and the diver rises.

With a round bottle, you won’t be able to get the diver to rise again once it’s on the bottom.



Related Snacks

Science activity that explores the relationship between volume, density, and pressure
Out of Sink

Make a reverse Cartesian diver.

Science activity that demonstrates differences in density
Klutz-Proof Density Column

This density column always returns to its original three layers.

Science activity measuring density of a liquid
Eyedropper Hydrometer

Construct a simple hydrometer to compare the densities of solutions.


Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Attribution: Exploratorium Teacher Institute

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