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I just won 2nd place in our district science fair. I grew a bunch of different types of crystals and compared them with store bought crystals to see which ones grew faster and better. I'm now going on to regionals and need to expand my project. Do you have any ideas of what I can do to expand my crystal growing project for regionals?
Question Date: 2005-12-14
Answer 1:

An interesting way to continue your crystal growth project is to test how different conditions control crystal growth. You can change temperature, pH, salt concentration. You can add an inert polymer, such as poly ethylene oxide or poly ethylene glycol, at various concentrations and see how this affect crystal growth.


Answer 2:

Depending on the size and shapes of your crystals, maybe you can measure them along the growth and see if there is a specific direction that grows faster to result in that shape. For example if your crystal grew to be a diamond maybe the length grows faster than the width and the height. If the crystals are big enough you may be able to find a tool to measure each of the dimensions. Congratulations and good luck!



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