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How to Make Glowing Oobleck from Potatoes & Tonic Water

Mar 13, 2014 05:58 PM

Mar 14, 2014 06:25 PM

Glowing hands with a blue hue and dripping substance.

This magical, glowing mixture is very strange, with an equally strange name (Oobleck), because it feels like moldable pizza dough in your hands one second, and like liquified goo the next.

Even stranger is the fact that this glowing "magical mud" is made from things we eat, specifically potatoes and tonic water. In this project, I'm going to show you how to make it.

First, you'll need to extract the starch from your potatoes, and the video above outlines a very simple process for doing this.

Bowl of potatoes next to a food processor.

Tonic water adds the "glow" when held under a black light.

Glowing Schweppes bottle under UV light.

The starch powder, mixed with tonic water, creates a fluorescent magic mud, and you can make it at home with your ordinary garden potatoes.

A hand holding a glowing object above a dark bowl.

A glowing, slime-like substance being held by a hand under UV light.

If you liked this project, check out some of my others here on WonderHowTo or over at thekingofrandom.com.

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