A Colorful Problem

Melanie and Cynthia were twins. They were both 8 years old. They were now aboard a spaceship because Melanie, who loves science and art, won a science and art competition and the prize was two tickets to a new planet!

One day, there was a problem. Melanie and Cynthia ran out of their Crayola crayons! They were only in the 2nd year of their 20 year journey and there were no more crayons left on their spaceship Vestigo and there were no art supply stores on their new planet! Cynthia started to wail. But Melanie said, “Don’t cry Cynthia. Crying doesn’t help anyways.”

There was a long silence, but finally, Melanie said, “Cynthia, I could probably make some crayons in my science lab.”

“Really? You mean it? You’ll make us crayons? Every color? Right?” asked Cynthia.

“Of course, Cynthia,” answered Melanie.

“Thanks, Melanie.”

Cynthia started to dance around the room, but Melanie was busy studying how to make crayons in her science book. She learned that the main components in crayons were paraffin wax and powered colors. “What in the world is this? What is paraffin wax?” Melanie decided to go to the chemist on board the spaceship to learn more about paraffin wax.

When Melanie got to the chemist, the chemist answered her questions. Paraffin wax is a chemical that you can get from petroleum or coal. It melts at 37°C. She knew her body was also at 37°C. Oh, no! That was a problem! The crayons would melt in your hands while coloring! She thought for a moment and then she went back to her science book to read more about wax that would not melt in your hands. She found out that there were many kinds of wax not only paraffin wax and they had different melting temperatures. Some of the different kinds of waxes were paraffin wax, soy wax, beeswax, and carnauba wax. There melting temperatures were:
Paraffin wax 37°C
Soy wax 49 - 82°C
Beeswax 62 - 64°C
Carnauba wax 82 – 86°C

She decided to pick beeswax for her crayons because the melting temperature of beeswax was higher than paraffin wax so the crayons would not melt in her hands. Also, she could find beeswax very easily from the bee colony aboard the spaceship. The bees were on board the spaceship Vestigo to help pollinate the crops. She went to the beekeeper to ask for some beeswax and the beekeeper gave her 500 grams of beeswax to test out her new crayon recipe.

Melanie was so excited! She took 100g of beeswax and started melting it in a double boiler. Once it was melted, she took the food coloring from the shelf, and she added the whole bottle of blue since that was Cynthia’s favorite color. Then, she started to stir it. The blue food color was not mixing in to the beeswax! It was a huge mess! Melanie realized wax and food color (which is in water) do not mix because wax is hydrophobic and the food color is hydrophilic. She needed powder or hydrophobic colors to mix with beeswax. She had to start all over again. Luckily, she had not used up all of her wax so she could have a second try.

She went to the kitchen to find some colors because she knew her mom used lots of bright colors in her food. She could use Kashmiri chilies for red and turmeric for yellow and dried blueberries for blue. (She was worried that Cynthia would burn her hands with the chilies, but luckily, Kashmiri chilies are the most red and mildest chilies.) Second she stated melting the beeswax gently in a double boiler so that the wax wouldn’t burn on the stove. Next, she used the powdered colors individually or mixed. She mixed the primary powder colors to get the full rainbow, mixing colors like:
Blue + Yellow = Green
Red + Blue = Violet
Yellow + Red = Orange

Then Melanie poured the wax into a cylindrical mold that Cynthia had made out of aluminum foil. Then she let them cool.

Cynthia was so excited to test the new crayons! Finally they had cooled off. Cynthia said, “Melanie, go ahead, you test them first. You’re the one who did all the great work to make this happen for both of us.” So Melanie did and she drew Cynthia a picture of a rainbow on their new planet with the new crayons. The colors were so bright and awesome!

Annotated Bibliography

1. Wikipedia: accessed January 28, 2020. From these website, I learned about the melting temperature of different waxes and also where they come from.

paraffin wax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraffin_wax
beeswax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeswax
carnauba wax: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnauba_wax

2. How Crayons are Made | How It's Made. Discovery UK. YouTube video accessed January 26, 2020. From this video, I learned how you make crayons and the ingredients used to put in them.