Make A Lemon Clock

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Before I had even started this project, it was one that I wished that I had done as a kid. I got this from The Daring Book for Girls. This science experiment required five different items; a clock, two galvanized nails, copper wire, electrician’s clips and a lemon (or two). Piece of cake. I looked in my fridge and realize that Leigha had a twenty pound bag of grapefruit and I figured that I could replace one of these for a lemon; it was bigger and still full of citrus. In retrospect, I would like to point out that this was the first of many times that I exchanged items/skimmed over the requirements for this to be a success.

            At Lowe’s, I quickly found the only item that I hadn’t heard of previously: the electrician’s clips. Then I started to look for galvanized nails. The book called for sixteen inch long nails. When I found them, I realized that a box cost about ten dollars, and I only needed two. I had several options at this point. 1. Spend ten bucks on some nails that I would hope to use one day. 2. Grab two nails from a box. 3. Find an employee and try to barter. Due to the fact that I’m a cheapskate and not a thief, I started to look for an employee.

            One can define good customer service as taking a ridiculous question/request/customer seriously even when they don’t deserve it. Darren looked to be a few years older than me, and busy unloading some flooring. He walked me over to an area of the store where they sold smaller nuts/bolts/screws/nails. I found a package of 3 ½ inch long galvanized brads for eighty-nine cents. Galvanized, nail-like and cheap. Perfect. Next, find a clock. Clocks are such a common item that struck me as odd when I realized that I didn’t think that I’d ever bought one before. Where do people buy clocks? Not even Lowe’s employees know where to buy clocks. Then I remembered that I had one down in the basement that I had been using when I was on the elliptical machine. It appeared as if I had everything that I needed.

            When it came time to assemble the lemon grapefruit clock battery, it didn’t take too long to figure out that this wasn’t really an age appropriate project for the kids. I hooked up the copper wire to the galvanized brads. They were much too small to wrap the wire around and keep it inside the grapefruit. So I went down into my basement and looked through my toolbox.

“Wait here guys, I’ll be right back.”

I had a lot of random nails, but I didn’t know if any of them were galvanized. So I called my friend, Cree. He is my go-to guy for all of my manly inquiries that have anything to do with building/operating/fixing anything.

“They are silver, but a dull shiny,” he told me.

I found two nails that may or may not have been galvanized. Then I double checked the connections. The negative and positives. Everything was correct, but it didn’t work. Then I re-read the directions from the beginning. This is when I realized that I needed a battery operated digital clock. Apparently, old fashioned clocks require more energy than digital.  

The way this whole thing works is that the nails, which need to be galvanized (coated with zinc to resist rust) react with the acid in the lemon (and perhaps not a grapefruit). The acid dissolves the zinc and creates a positive charge. The connection between copper wire, clock and lemon creates a circuit. So when you have a lemon (which has more acid than grapefruit) and galvanized (this is a must) nails connect with a digital clock, this should be a simple science experiment.

There are several lessons that I learned from the lemon clock experiment. First, I need to read the complete directions and know exactly what I am doing. Secondly, I need to make sure that I have all the correct materials. I shouldn’t try to substitute the first time around. I realized that it was as if I was trying out a new recipe, but changing before it was even finished. Finally, I realized that I should really attempt to do projects that are age appropriate for a two and three year old. They seem like the fundamentals for many things, but I guess that I figured that things like this that were so simple a kid could do it, I could half-try and still succeed.

The reason that this one failed was one hundred percent my fault. The good thing is that the kids have no idea that the Lemon Clock didn’t work and I found a replacement project for them: Swirling Colored Milk. Yes, that’s correct; Swirling Colored Milk. This one is super duper simple that is a nearly Adam-proof project. All that you have to do is fill a bowl with milk (the higher fat content, the better), put a few drops of food color and then pour in some hand soap. The fats in the milk react to the soap and they push apart, causing a swirling of the food color. It was simple, the kids could drop the coloring and the soap in themselves, and I finally got that “whoa” moment from the kids that I’ve been looking for. Then I wondered what it would’ve looked like with something other than skim milk.