Science Expo Draft:
Abstract
Our project for the Science Expo was to create a shoe cleaner. Our goal with this idea was to make the best possible shoe cleaner and save many people a lot of money. We wanted to fix the problem of having to buy a new shoe every time one gets dirty. To do this, we went to the store and bought various products. We tested which ones worked the best and added them to our mixture. We tested our cleaner many times and tweaked it every time until we got what we wanted. We found that our cleaner was, of course not as good as some professional companies but, it worked very well for the amount of money it costed.
Introduction
Shoes have always been a huge part of everyone’s life. If it were not for shoes we would walk outside with frozen feet. The first shoe created was in Mesopotamia, (c. 1600 – 1200 BC). This shoe was created out of a material called wraparound leather. This shoe was similar to moccasin, a shoe made from soft leather, as deer skin, with the sole pulled up and attached to an u-shaped leather on top of the shoe. Now, of course from, 1600 BC to 2018, we have made a lot of progress. Today, we have shoes that are able to tie their own laces. But now, many people own a lot more than one shoe. In fact the average male owns 12 pairs of shoes and the average woman owns 27, this was found in a study in 2014. . Will this many shoes, it is necessary to clean them and keep care of them. Everyone wants to make good use of their money so, that is why we created our own shoe cleaner. The average shoe cleaner on Jason Marks retails at, $18 for just one bottle that will not last long enough. Our cleaner cost $13.87 to make, and we could fill 4 bottles before having to get supplies again.
Our cleaner uses many types of cleaner and combines them. This relates to science because we had to combine chemicals together to create an apparatus. We had to measure the right amount of ingredients to add and figure out in what order to add them. This relates to science again when, we had to experiment many types of cleaner to come up with the best cleaner. We also, could not only experiment once. We experimented different variations of our cleaner eight times.
Methods
First, we started by testing different ingredients by themselves to see which ones worked the best. To do this, we added 2 drops onto a shoe cleaning brush. The first product we tested was Stain Devils. After we tested Stain Devils, we thoroughly cleaned our brushes and added 2 drops of Spot Remover. After testing both of our products we, came to a conclusion that Stain Devils was the dominant cleaner. We added that to our list of what will be in our final product. Next, we tested Equate Nail Polish Remover and Pure Baking Soda in Louana Liquid Coconut oil. To test this we added 2 drops of each product onto our brush at separate times. We noticed that there was not too much of a difference between the two. So, we tried mixing the Pure Baking Soda into the nail polish remover. To our surprise, it worked very well. So, we added those to our list of things in our final product.
Then, we took a dirty shoe and tested our new cleaner. We added 4 drops of our cleaner onto our brush and 2 drops of water. We, also added soap to water at a 1:3 ratio. To clean our shoe we first, took out the laces of our shoe to keep them dry, then we started to scrub the tongue of our shoe. From there we then, scrubbed the right side, left side, and then the sole of the shoe to give it a little touch up. After we finished the scrubbing we let the shoe sit for 13 minutes outside to let some soap dry naturally. After 13 minutes passed we brought the shoe back inside and got a normal bathroom towel and dried the shoe.
Ingredients:
How much to make:
Tap water mixed with Dial Hand Soap
Fill bottle a third of the way up with tap water. Add two pumps of Dial Hand Soap
Stain Devils
Add three squirts of Stain Devils
Pure Baking Soda stirred with Equate Nail Polish
Pour Equate Nail Polish into a cup. Add Pure Baking Soda to the cup(No specific amount). Stir these two together until baking soda is not visible. Now, pour the mixture into the cleaner until ¾ of the bottle is filled.
Total Ingredients: 5
Cost: $13.87 (with tax)
Discussion/CER
Our cleaner contains many products that are meant to clean various objects. Our first product in the cleaner is, Stain Devils. This is a “Grass, Dirt & Makeup” remover. We do not add too much of this because it could cause the shoe color to fade if too much is added. Our next product is Pure Baking Soda which we mix with Equate Nail Polish Remover. We chose to mix the baking soda with the nail polish because it created a good mixture that, when we tested, took dirt off our shoe very well. Our last two ingredients are Dial Hand Soap and normal room temperature water. This works well in our cleaner because the soap provides bubbles that sink into shoe which cleans it very thoroughly. This also added a pleasant smell to our product which is a nice touch to top off our cleaner. So, with all of these products combining, we come out with a strong shoe cleaner that works very well.
An adult shoe on Nike.com will normally retail for $180. So, when someone buys this shoe they are obviously going to wear them because they spent a lot of money on it. But, the problem is that because, they wear the shoe so much they get dirty and old. So now, a shoe that sold for $180 is turned into a shoe that will cost about $20. After the shoe looks dirty and beat up, it is naturally that this person will go and spend another $180 on a shoe just to do the something over again. That is where our product will come in handy. Just one clean of the shoe could bring the price back up once again. But, this also prevents you from having to buy another shoe because now, your shoe looks clean and new. Our cleaner can save many people with this problem a lot of money for other more important stuff. A problem we came across that we had to solve was that, when we went to scrub the shoe with our cleaner, we realized we did not have any soap bubbles which is necessary in a shoe cleaner. Our first idea was to test different soaps to see which one had the right amount of bubbles. After testing three different kinds of soap we decided that Dial Hand Soap had the right amount of studs. So, we put the soap in to our mixture but realized that water was a necessary for our products to work well. So, we filled a third of the bottle with water. This leveled out all our products in the cleaner very well. Not only did this give us the soap bubbles we needed, it fixed the smell of our product too.
References
Bellis, M. (n.d.). Everything About The History of Shoes. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-shoes-1992405
S. (2014, October 31). Shoe News – How Many Pairs Of Shoes Does The Average Person Own? Retrieved from http://worldshoeliquidator.com/shoe-news-how-many-pairs-does-average-person-own
Moccasin. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/moccasin