Fot this, you will need a 9 volt battery, some steel wool, and some toilet paper or tissue.
Wrap the toilet paper around one end of the steel wool (this is done because toilet paper burns very easily). Keep the steel wool away from the battery until you are ready to start a fire.
This works because a 9 volt battery has both a negative and a positive connector on the same side of the battery. When the wire touches both of these points, it causes the battery to short out and causes the fire. The good thing about this trick, is that it will work even if the steel wool becomes damp.
For this experiment, for safety's sake, we kept a bowl of water on the table, to drop the burning tissue into. If we were lighting a real camp fire this way, I think I would place the steel wool and tissue in the fire pit and not hold it at all while touching the battery to it.
So when the battery shorts out, is it no longer usable? The battery can be used for one fire only? Or will it work again?
ReplyDeleteIt will work over and over. We used it twice during that demonstration. That wasn't even a new battery. The only 9-volt battery I had, was the one out of my kitchen scale, so that's what we used.
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