Kindergartener's Hypothesis Flies, Honored at BNL Competition

Does the temperature of a rubber band have anything to do with how far it shoots when a kid – or adult – wings it back and fires it across the room?

Riley Avenue kindergarten student Josh Pokorny set to find out, and was awarded an honorable mention in a Brookhaven National Lab competition as a result.

Pokorny's experiment, 'Rubber Band Rumble,' comprised of taking 9 rubber bands – three after they were placed in the freezer, three at room temperature, and three after being warmed inside a heating pad – and letting them go off a "shooter" his dad crafted to create a consistent force, said Pokorny's grandmother, Calverton resident April Pokorny.

Pokorny's hypothesis – "I think the hot ones will go farthest because I know that hot things like race car engines and the sun have a lot of energy" – ended up being correct, as the warmer rubber bands flew further, and he took one of nine honorable mentions in his category.

In grades K-6, over 500 experiments from 114 schools were entered into the competition.