What we discovered/ learned throughout the process

From the very beginning, we knew that our group was very cohesive, and would work extremely well together. We learned about more than one experiment as we combined the use of the flash freeze with the golden rain. This did cause a lot more work on our part, but we thoroughly enjoyed it, and learning as a team.

As the Golden Rain was our primary experiment (we only used the fast freeze to speed up and possibly change our experiment) we focused on learning about it, rather that the fast freeze.

We tried variations on the Golden Rain experiment such as, using tap water instead of distilled water, only heating one chemical, making smaller batches, using the fast freeze to cool it faster, separating the solution into several beakers to help it cool down faster, but naturally, heating the experiment to boiling, waiting until the solution turned clear before we let it cool, not waiting, etc. We found that the best way to do this experiment, although the longest, is to heat both parts of the solution up to boiling before mixing them, leaving them on the heat until the mixture went clear, and letting it cool naturally. This produced the most crystals, and also the best looking crystals.

One thing that we were surprised about was reaction with tap water. Everywhere we researched seemed to emphasize distilled water, but when we tried the experiment with tap water, it worked just as well.

I think that we all enjoyed doing these experiments and learning together, as a team.