For the project we were supposed to have a certain number of protons, electrons, and neutrons. I got lucky with Aluminum, as it only has 13 of each. I had received a base to put my atom around last year from the now juniors, so I had one part done to start. I then had to search for ideas for protons and electrons (since I could just color protons differently to make neutrons.) I had originally wanted everything to be made of aluminum, but since aluminum is not available in large(kind of) balls, I decided to go with ping pong balls for protons and neutrons, and crumpled aluminum foil for electrons.
I worked hard to put it together and not have two protons touch each other ( which is really hard to do with equal amounts of protons and neutrons) since in a real atom, that would cause an implosion from a molecular level. Then, the day the atom is due, what happens, my atom falls, and breaks, making me try to put it back together, before running out of glue.
So, I went into school, and my teacher (thankfully) gave me extra time to fix it. Over the weekend I was with my dad, so I brought it over there and kept trying to put it back together using glue. I went to use the bathroom and when I came back he was burning holes into the ping pong balls to put matchsticks through as a way to keep them together. Needless to say, that didn't work, so when I came back to my mom's that Sunday, I had to start over from scratch.
I cobbled together something using pipe cleaners to hold the electrons, using cotton balls as protons and neutrons and only got a 76 on the assignment. I was so ANGRY at what happened, I worked so hard, only to get ruined by two stupid things, gravity, and my father's idea. I guess that is what happens when people care too much about a project.
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