Category: Science

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Throughout our design process and experimentation, we have learned a lot. From the four trials, three of them resulted in failure. In our first trial, we added PVA and borax, which resulted in a not very stretchy slime, we need the slime to be stretchy to adapt to the different keyboards as well as giving the user some flexibility on where they want to clean. In the second trial, we tried to fix this problem by including less borax and more PVA, which made it more stretchy but changed made it runnier and stickier. Although this ended up as a failure, the slime gave us some insight on what the ingredients can bring to the polymer and helped us realize our errors so that we could review, revise, and create again! Our third experiment was more successful. We added 13 milliliters of liquid starch, 10 milliliters of borax, and 70 milliliters of PVA. This trial helped immensely with the stretchiness of the slime as well as making it more solid. However, this trial was still not good enough for our high standards. The slime was still not as stretchy as we wanted and it was runny because of the overdose of PVA. Our fourth trial was incredibly successful; this was the one experiment that hit all our standards. This was because we took out the borax entirely and replaced it with just liquid starch. Having 20 milliliters of PVA and 47 milliliters of liquid starch, this experiment had the right amount of stretchiness, the right amount of liquid to solid ratio, and when we safely tested it on a keyboard, it cleaned! Now, all we have to do is make it smell pleasant for our customers and make it a nice blue color!

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For my companies cleaning product, it should not be too slimy or too hard. This is because the properties that the polymer has a significant impact on its use. If the polymer is too slimy, it might seep into your computer! And nobody wants that. If the polymer is too hard, it will not be sticky enough to collect all the bits and grime that lurk under your keys! A physical property it should have is the smell, to make the polymer smell pleasant for our customers and make sure their keys are squeaky clean and smell good. Another physical property it should have is the stickiness, we do not want our slime sticking to your computer and your hands! The plan my company has to develop prototypes is to create, review, revise, edit, and create! We will do this continuously until we find the perfect solution for your keyboard needs. The way we test these numerous prototypes is to use it on a keyboard, make sure it is used enough that it has dirt in every corner and slit, and then clean it all right up! As a standard, we use a newly bought keyboard and then compared it to the clean one to see which one is cleaner.

For the polymer project, my group has invested our time into creating the perfect cleaning polymer. Anyone can use this cleaning product! As long as you have a computer. This polymer will solve all of your dirty keyboard issues, especially the grime and dirt underneath. The unique mixture is made up of a borax solution and white glue. Often when these two substances have combined the properties of the substances change. A
physical or chemical reaction is taking place when this happens. White craft glue is a type of polymer called polyvinyl acetate. When the borax solution is added to the glue, the molecules of the borax bind up the glue “strands” so that the glue no longer flows freely. The properties of this new substance are unlike the original glue or borax solution. The “goop” behaves unusually; it has some characteristics of a liquid and some characteristics of a solid. This substance creates the perfect solution to our dirty keyboard problems, by seeping between the keys and removing the gunk, your keyboard will be clean! This product would go to the most important client that anyone could sell too…The public! Everyone would be able to use this polymer to clean their keyboard and any other hard-to-get-to places. The slime is also straightforward and will not seep into your computer as it is a mixture of solids and liquids.