We're going to talk a little bit about static, so I need a couple volunteers to come up
Volunteers who do not mind me messing
up their hair so I'm definitely going to
mess up your hair.

These balloons here... Our little balloon
Puffy stuck to the wall. Puffy is stuck
to the wall because there are extra
electrons on the balloon giving it a bit
of a negative charge but that charge--- 
bit by bit the electrons will travel into
wall, and eventually they'll all just
dissipate. They'll go like it to the air.
They'll go going to the wall. They'll travel other, places and they'll just spread out
and when that happens, then the balloon will just drift down and fall to the ground.
And same thing with you if you go down a slide and you get a real good charge
where you can feel like "Oh my clothes feel all staticky,"
 if you just run around and play
for a while, eventually, just on its own
the charge will go away, but if you give
the charge an opportunity to go away all
at once that's when you fill the shock.
We can charge balloons by rubbing
balloons onto a fabric. We can also
charge plastic. Anything that is an
insulator can build up a static charge,
so if I rub this plastic pipe... Can you guys hear that? Listen. Hear like a little
crackle crackle sound? We're getting a
static charge. And now if I lay this
metal can on its side, watch and
tell me if the can is attracted or
repelled by the pipe.

Attracted. Super attracted to the pipe. It followed it right off.
This is pretty amazing. It almost seems
like magic but it's not magic. It's the
science of static electricity.

So I'm
going to really rub this to try and give
it a lot of charge, and then I'm going to drop the tinsel on.
There's a free
download linked in the description.
You can print this paper and then fold it
into a little pocket-sized book and it
goes through each of the activities with
instructions for how to do them.
Let me show you how to tie the tinsel orbs
because they can be just a little bit trickky.
First you need to make sure you
have the right type of tinsel, because
not all tinsel will work. This newer
tinsel that hangs really straight and
pretty looks about the same as the
old-style tinsel that's a little more
flimsy but it's slightly heavier, and
it's too heavy to float no matter how
much static you have, orbs from this
type of tinsel will never work so
Brite Star tinsel is the brand that I
use that reliably works very well.
I found a few other cheap tinsel brands
that work too. Check the link in the
description because from time to time I
do giveaways through my patreon page
where I mail out a little orbs of tinsel that
are pre-tied so I might be doing one of
those. All right. You want six strands and
you're going to tie a knot---just a simple
overhand knot like you do to start tying
your shoe, and then you want to go down
about maybe a hand width down... five
five inches or so.. Loop around and tie
your second knot. So that's a that's a good length for a tinsel orb.Now if you tie your
knots carefully you'll be able to make
two orbs out of one set of strands.
So you want to tie another knot and then go down
and tie your last knot. And then you're just
going to trim off the excess tinsel.
Now these could be tricky especially at
the beginning. Don't worry if your first
few strands... you end up not being able to
use them because the moths don't work out.
Just keep practicing and you will
get it.
So here is one tinsel orb, and just trim
off the ends there. There's our second
tinsel orb. If you don't have a length of
PVC pipe you can do this with a balloon.
It can be a little bit trickier to get
the balloon charged and I will say if
it's raining outside then this won't
work at all, not with a balloon or a pipe,
because if it's too humid and you won't be
able to get enough static electricity to
make it work. The key to this is that you
want so many excess electrons on the
pipe or the balloon that as soon as the
tinsel orb touches it, some of those
electrons will be transferred to the
tinsel orb, enough that they both are
charged negatively and they repel each
other. Sometimes when you drop your
tinsel on to the pipe it might puff up
but not bounce off. If you just give it a
little shake, then you can get it to
float.
Usually you want to recharge your
pipe in between each time doing the
levitating orb. I want to give a
quick shout out to Science Bob because I
believe that he's the one that first
invented this levitating orb. You can
find more about it at his website which
I'll link in the description. This is
hands-down my very favorite static
electricity demonstration.
Yeah, see? Fantastic.
