how did you entertain your kids on rainy days of summer? a used hand mixer (price $1 cause it only worked on low) was great fun for mixing non food items..
another cool--but messy-- non newtonian fluid is a slurry of corn starch and water.. (technically its not really a liquid, but a solution of corn starch in water)...
but the important thing is this:
when under stress, corn starch molicules align themselves at right angles to the stress..
which in lay man's terms means--if you smack (really hard, really fast!) your hand into a pie plate filled with a cup fo cornstarch slurry, you don't get covered with the slurry!
as you hit it, it becomes hard (rock hard! use an open hand, not a fist!) but seconds later, as your hand just sits there (not smacking) it is no longer 'stressed' and your hand just sinks in.. --and gets covered with corn starch slurry..
we bought lots of old rotary dial phones too, to take apart, and 'play' with. my son still has and uses a rotary phone he build for himself (mounted on a block of wood) it looks strange, (it has a toggle switch for reciever up/down) and the handpeice hangs on the side)
one year we made 'salt rising bread' by cultivating a salt (brine) tolerant yeast--that was rather aromatic..
the kids liked when we did super saturated solutions.. (and make rock candy, and rock salt)
we were always doing crazy projects/experiments.
