A friend of my mine recently found some paintballs to use for kids. They are literally gel balls filled with paint. I knew my boys would love experimenting with them, and I was right! And ever since our ice cream science experiment this summer, I’ve been trying find another science experiment we can do together. Creating paintball masterpieces was a fun way for all 3 of my sons to experiment with forces together!
Paintball Forces Science Experiment
This post contains affiliate links. Please see disclosure for more information.
Supplies:
Two sheets of 11in by 14in water color paper
1 bag of goblies
Blue painter’s tape
Precautions:
- Make sure to wear clothes that you don’t mind getting dirty. This paintball science experiment is messy!
Procedure:
Step 1: Using the blue painter’s tape, I taped 2 sheets of watercolor paper onto our fence, about 5 feet apart from eachother.
Step 2: I gave one goblie to each kid (a 2, 4, and 8 year old).
Step 3: I told the two younger boys to throw their paintball at one sheet of paper, and my oldest to throw at the other piece of paper.
Step 4: I continued to give them each one goblie at a time, until the entire bag was finished. They missed the paper several times, but still had a lot of fun throwing paintballs!
Results:
Here is what our two masterpieces looked like at the end of our experiment!
Conclusion:
We noticed the paintballs thrown by my oldest son created much larger splats on the paper than the ones thrown by his little brothers. Our hypothesis was that his splats were larger because of two reasons. First, my oldest is 4 and 6 years older than his brothers. Second, he plays baseball and can throw pretty hard. For these two reasons, we decided he threw with a greater force than his little brothers. The greater force behind his paintballs made them explode more violently, spreading the paint into a huge splat! His little brothers’ paintballs, on the other hand, were not thrown as hard. When their paintballs hit the paper, they exploded more gently, so the paint did not splatter very much.
3 Engineering Activities!
Explore the fields of Mechanical, Chemical, and Electrical Engineers with this 3 day email course about engineers!
We had a lot of fun with our paintball science experiment! It was easy to set up, and took under 5 minutes to do! Give it a try with all the kids in your house! Or maybe between mom and kids. See whose paintballs create the biggest splat!
Did you enjoy this science experiment? Try out some of my other ones!
Quick Science Experiments for Kids
How to Make Ice Cream Quicker using Heat Transfer!
Angular Momentum Experiment with Beyblades!
Making the Layers of the Ocean-A Density Activity
Easy Beyblade Science Experiment: Explore Different Types of Beyblades
Easy and Fun Garden Preschool Science Experiment
Rainbow Crayon: a Crayon Melting Point Experiment
Tensile Strength Experiment: Find the Strongest Spider Web!
Halloween Rock Painting for Kids using Physics!
Law of Inertia Experiment using a Fidget Spinner!
Center of Mass Fidget Spinner Experiment