fairfolio
Saved Projects

Stop the Tears!

CSEF · 2010 Product Science (Biological) (Junior Division Only)

Lauren M. Weetman · St. Martin of Tours School, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County

Overview

Objectives/Goals The objective of my project was to determine which method of chopping onions caused the least amount of tears and/or discomfort to the test subjects. Methods/Materials My materials were: forty, medium, white onions of the same variety, five sharp, steak knives, five bowls of water with one litre of water in them each, five pairs of Speedo swimming goggles, a freezer, a loaf of Fresh and Easy white bread, seventy-five paper towels, five girls, age twelve, a table, and five plates. I had five girls chop five half-onions each: a control group, one with bread in their mouths, one onion while wearing goggles, one that had been in water for five minutes, and an onion that had frozen for ten minutes; then they logged how uncomfortable they were on a visual pain scale. The duration for chopping for each test was 90 seconds. Results The result was that the watered onion was the least uncomfortable to chop. The onion with the bread in the subject's mouth was the most uncomfortable to chop. Conclusions/Discussion Therefore, the watered onion is the best to use while chopping to minimize discomfort.

Summary statement

My project was to determine the best method of not crying while chopping onions.

Help received

My parents helped prepare the onions and supervise the subjects while they were chopping the onions because of the use of knives.

Competition history

  • CSEF 2010 Product Science (Biological) (Junior Division Only) · Entry J2132

Resources

Related projects

Closest projects by meaning, across every fair and year in the corpus.

Browse more like this

Source: California Science & Engineering Fair public projects

Save projects to your library

Sign in with Google to keep track of projects you find interesting, organized into folders. An account also raises your daily allowance for “Has this been done?”, and lets you create a key for the MCP server with a much higher limit than anonymous use. Browsing stays public.

Continue with Google