User:Caroline Norman24/enes-100/project 0

My Instructor's course page which points to this.

Project Preference
''Your class was given a list of projects to choose from. Please list the three projects you want to work on, from highest to lowest.''

Problem Statement
''In one or two sentences, describe the project that your group will be working on. Identify what CDIO phase (Conceive, Design, Implement, or Operate) your group will complete in this project cycle.''

Project Plan
Briefly describe your group's plan for the next 4 weeks, including major tasks that will be completed each week.

Week1 Narrative
I measured 1/4 cup of in a glass measuring cup so I could see what happened. I counted the beads there were 150. They are approximately 2mm in diameter. I put all the beads in the water and watched while they slowly took in water. Soon after they were put in the water they came together and formed a honey comb sort of appearance. After they started to become saturated they broke the honey comb appearance and started to float. I left them in water for 10min. I poured the water and the beads through a tea strainer so that the left over water would go into another cup. This is so I would be able to see how much water was left and subtract that from the 1/4 cup. There was about 20% of the water removed by the beads. I measured 20 beads and got an average diameter of 7.5mm. I left the beads in the tea strainer over night to see if they would release the water. I calculated the volume using the 2mm initial diameter and the 7.5 final diameter to see how much the volume changed between the original and the expanded sizes. I then converted to mL to see how much was water was lost. The expanded beads have a volume of 33mL but there was only about 20% of the volume missing form the 1/4 cup. I predicted that the beads also took in some oxygen and that some of the volume is related to a chemical reaction. On Tuesday in class some of my classmates told me that I needed to leave the beads in the water for 12 hours not just 10min. So when I went home on Tuesday I put 20 beads back in water and left the rest in a tea strainer to see if they released the water. When I came back in the morning to check on the beads they had grown to marble size and were invisible in the water. You had to put your hand in the cup and feel around to find them. My next step would be to see if I can get all the water out of the beads and get them to shrink back to their original size.

I left the beads in the tea strainer for about 3 to 4 days. They shrunk quite a lot. The half that did not get to there full size are now almost back to their original size and the ones that got to there full size have shrunk considerably. After my Tuesday class I put 3 beads on a paper towel to see if that helped them dry faster than the beads left in the tea strainer. After just one day on the paper towel the beads were smaller then the ones that were in left in the tea strainer. My prediction would be that having the beads on a paper towel helps the water drain out of them faster than if they are just left in the tea strainer.