Creating a New Mindset – Steve Spangler’s STEM Conference
STEM isn’t just about the obvious – science, technology, engineering and math… it’s about creating opportunity for children to think […]
We’re back from another taping at the Ellen DeGeneres Show and we had a blast. I use the pronoun “we” because this taping required a team of people to orchestrate the final stunt… the Bed of Nails. This segment featured the Methane Bubble Fire Ball (always a crowd pleaser), a demonstration of Bernoulli’s Principle with floating ping-pong balls, beach balls and a new way to “TP” your friend’s house using a leaf blower (and who doesn’t like to decorate their friend’s home with toilet paper?). Learn more about all of the science demos.
The final science experiment was a demonstration of pressure… 4,538 points of pressure to be exact. The great people at the Arizona Science Center allowed us to borrow their Bed of Nails from their “Get Charged Up!” exhibit for the show. This was no easy task as the Bed of Nails (created by Hands-On exhibits in Flordia) weighs a mere 1,000 pounds. It’s by far the best Bed of Nails I’ve ever seen because the nails come up from the table. Just push the red button and the nails rise up with your body resting on top. It’s an amazing sensation… and Ellen agreed to let me place her on the nails. Believe it or not, the secret is actually the number of nails on the bed. The more nails the better since the entire weight of your body is spread across the tips of all of those nails. Putting your entire weight on one nail would ruin the weekend, but distributing your weight across a thousand nails makes the stunt possible… and it looks amazing.
