The fortune fish is a big mystery. When you look at it, it is just a thin plastic fish. It doesn't look like much, but once you put the fish on the palm of your hand, it starts to do some pretty crazy things. It can fold up, wave its head or tail, lay motionless, and even flip over. The crazy things that it does on your hand are supposed to reveal to you your fortune. Whether or not it reveals your fortune, it still has the mystery of why it's able to do what it does even though its a paper fish.
What I experienced with this fish was pretty much the same thing every time. I tried a couple of things in an effort to have the fish do something different in my hand, but no matter what I did, the fish continued to just flip over. I tried rubbing my hands together to see if heat had anything to do with how the fish reacted to the palm of my hand. I had multiple different people try it and most of the time they experienced the same thing as I did. A couple of people experienced something slightly different. We tried to see if it would work on the back of your hand but nothing happened. We also tried putting on our palm after being outside to see if cold hands had any effect, but again, I did not notice any difference. I did notice, however, that it needs to be placed in the bag while not in use. I wonder if that has anything to do with how it reacts.
Because there was not very much variation in what the fish did, it was hard to find any clues that lead me to understand why it did what it did. The two things that I think might have something to do with it is either friction or heart rate.
Hey Heidi! I found your experiment very interesting! That is so weird that the fish did not move any differently when you tired different things. When I tried different temperatures, the fish reacted differently. I never thought of heart rate affecting the fish though! That is a really good thought!
ReplyDeleteGreat exploration Heidi! i did not mess with the heat of the fish, so I find it interesting that it did not affect the fish much. I wonder if you would have tested it on other surfaces if you would have been able to reach the conclusion that the fish is affected by moisture?
ReplyDeleteHeidi, I like your post. It was very articulate in the words you used. It was also clear what you did in order to find out how the fish moved. I also like the different things you did in order to find out how the fish moved. I also found that there was not much variation with how the fish moved when I did it myself and had other people try it. A couple of my roommates did get a little bit of a different response, but not enough to count significantly.
ReplyDeleteNice summary of the experiment and your findings, Heidi! I also experienced limited change between trials with the fish, though my best theory related to bodily temperature, which relates to your friction theory! I also liked that you included your curiosity about leaving the fish out of its plastic envelope and am also curious as to what would happen.
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