In this blog I will be talking about my experience of making my thermos!
We were assigned by Mr. Abud to make a thermos that would be able to hold a Styrofoam cup and to maintain the same temperature of water (or at least as close to the original temperature) as possible.
The Design
When
planning out my thermos design I knew that it needed 1 thing: insulation. I
then looked up materials that would be the best to insulate liquids. The main
material was foam. I then looked up the construction methods of different types
of thermoses. The ideal design was a vacuumed container with a reflective
inside. I knew that I would have to make a vacuum but I didn’t know what to
use. I needed something that would be able to take out as much air form in
between the two containers as much as possible then my dad told me about
expanding foam. With expanding foam you are able to spray the substance where
you want it and then it will expand taking up all of the space in between. I
then used aluminum foil for the inside container. While it is metal, the
aluminum reflects not allowing energy escape the thermos. The containers I
started were tin cans but found out that metal was a conductor and would make the
water become cooler. I then found a different inner container but I wasn’t able
to find a big enough outer container so I used the can I already had. But what
I changed was that I “painted” the inside of the can with the spray foam to
make it better insulated. I also found shiny house insulation with bubble wrap
inside to wrap the inner and outer containers in before spraying the inside. I made
a cap for the thermos with a Styrofoam circle and aluminum foil putting a hole
for the thermometer. I then made a “hat” for my thermos for more lining with
the same insulation putting a small cut at the top for the thermometer. My motto was “when in doubt, spray foam”
during that time and it worked wonders!
The day of the testing was a day to remember. Everyone came to class with their thermoses and no one's looked the same. But most to all of the thermoses had styrofoam and aluminum foil included in their designs. For testing, everyone had to heat up their water to 80 degrees celsius and then we poured in our styrofoam cups then place it in our thermoses. We checked the temperature of the water every minute writing down its changes in temperature. When I began, I made the mistake of not having a hole for the thermometer. This lead to me to putting a hole in the bottome of the cup and having to continually take te top on and off to check the temperature making the water lose more energy than it should. Thankfully Mr. Abud counted that day as a practice day so we could improve our thermos designs. What I changed is that the top of my thermos had a slit at the top to insert the thermos. The next day we tested out thermoses and my new designed while being a simple change worked out perfectly. I only lost about 3 degrees from my water and I got the highest percentage in my class! It was fun creating the thermos and I can't wait for our next project.
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