thinking about electrolytes and conductivity

In this lab, first we got all of our materials, like the pennies, salt, water, vinegar, matte paper, sandpaper, and LED lights. Then, we started rubbing the copper of the pennies for 4/5 of the pennies on the sandpaper, and then we soaked the matte paper in a solution with vinegar, salt and water. After this, then we put the matte paper, and the pennies together with the LED light. We tried using other LED lights, with different colors, and tried re-doing the solution, but none of them worked. 

The reason all this happens because it's like a battery. Because of the positive and negative sides, it creates a battery-like product. Unfortunately, ours didn't work. When metals are connected to  electrodes, and are connected to a wire, the electrons move from one penny to the other, creating an electric current. The reason our didn't work could have possibly been because we used a 1982 penny, which would have not been a post-1982 penny. Also, our solution could've been wrong because we could've used too much or little water, salt or vinegar. The mattepaper soaked in the electrolyte-like product due to the acids, created an electrolyte between the two pennies. Alessandro Volta, who created the first battery, which is why this is called a voltaic pile. 

Here are out pictures of the lab. First, here's a picture of the pennies on the sandpaper, then there's a picture of the final penny battery. As you can see in the bottom two pictures, the LED light did not turn on.

Here is a snippet of my excel worksheet of my observations of the Reactivity of Metals lab. In this lab, we put the metals magnesium, sodium, lithium, aluminum, and calcium into a mix of vinegar, water and a universal indicator. We would time how long it would change from the reddish color, to a blue or purple color once the metals would be dropped in. We found out that certain elements like sodium will have an immediate reaction when dropped into the vinegar and indicator mix. Other elements like Calcium and Lithium took longer than sodium, however still reacted extremely quickly. Lithium and Calcium took around 12-14 seconds each. Other elements like Magnesium and Aluminum kind of just dropped into the mixture and didn't react at first. It sort of bubbled for seconds, and then didn't do much. After we waited for 3 days, Aluminum still stayed as a reddish color, as seen in the photo below. It turned more of an orange color, a lot lighter than the original substance. However, Magnesium completely changed colors. As you can see, it turned into this blue, turquoise color, changed from the reddish solution that you can see in the pictures below.

I learned this happens depending on its number of valence electrons and orbitals. Sodium turns immediately because it only has to get rid of one valence electron, and it has a 3S orbital, rather than a 2S orbital like Lithium has. I assume the lower you go on the alkali metals, the faster the reaction will be. Elements like Lithium will be slower than Sodium, yet still faster than any electron with more than one valence electron. Calcium and Magnesium take longer to react because they have two valence electrons, and it's much harder to get rid of two electrons than one. For elements with two valence electrons, it must get rid of two electrons in the outermost shell, which is much harder than to get rid of one valence electron in the outermost shell. Aluminum takes the longest because it has the most valence electrons out of all the 5 elements. The more valence electrons the element has, the longer it takes to react. Aluminum has 3 valence electrons, more than any other element we tested. Also, magnesium and aluminum are on the same 3rd period, meaning that aluminum will take a similar amount of time to react as magnesium.

Here are some of the pictures we took. I tried to put them in order of before and after, but the pictures were too big and would not let me place them. 

 

My surface's touch screen doesn't work so I had to draw everything. My 8 trends include
1. Finger numbers
2. Facial Expression
3. Arm Position
4. Size vertical
5. Size horizontal
6. Pattern
7. Number of curls
8. Arms number

The number of fingers, arms and curls increase my group number. The facial expression continually gets happier as it moves down until the noble gases. The arm position, similar to number of fingers continually moves down. The size gets smaller when you go down in periods, and the size gets bigger when you go across by group, and the pattern stays the same within the group.

here is my drawing of an unknown alien and my table. I arranged this in terms of number of fingers. This is similar to the Medeleev and Moseley table because the rest of the class will have different orders. Other groups may arrange this by things like hair, or body, which was similar to how they arranged the periodic table before there was a universal way to find atomic number, or atomic mass, and before there was a universal periodic table, the first introduced by Medeleev. This is very similar to Mendeleev because there is an unknown box that was left, just like in this table. Because there is a blank in the table, it allowed Mendeleev to know there are unknown elements, while there were boxes for elements that were known like Gold, or Silver. This project explains how hard it was to do experiments before there was a universal table or way to find atomic number.

Mendealien Analysis
1. In what two ways are all the species different?
All the species are different in ways like body type, hair, number of fingers, and design on their chest.

2. What do the species in a row have in common?
On the secret agent guys PDF, the rows all have very similar body types.  similar to the periodic table, certain elements close to each other like metals, nonmetals and noble gases will have very similar body types.

3. What do the species in a column have in common?
On the secret agent guys PDF, the columns all have diverse types of bodies. Every row down gets bigger, similar to the periodic table. For example, for the noble gases, they will each get bigger in terms of protons, similar to this alien chart.

4. How do the numbers of fingers relate to the periodic table?
On the secret agent guys PDF, the number of fingers goes up one per each box. The number of fingers are like the atomic number. It has specific orbitals, like the S or P. Once it reaches a certain amount, it needs another orbital.

5. How do the arms relate to the periodic table?
On the secret agent guys PDF, one arm is like the s orbital, once it reaches 2 fingers, it needs another arm. Once the next arm reaches 8 it needs another arm, just like the P orbital. Then, once the next arm reaches 8, it needs another arm.

6. How do the number of hairs relate to the periodic table?
On the secret agent guys PDF, the number of hairs is somewhat random. It starts with one, then two, then one, then two and then goes up from there. However, certain mendaliens have only one hair, rather than going up one in a sequence.

7. How do the markings on the chest identify the agents compared to the periodic table?
On the secret agent guys PDF, similar to the hair is somewhat random. It will go in a certain order, like the small chested aliens will have dots or arrows, however some small chested aliens also have plaid designs. In my opinion, there is no set design, purely random.