Hive mind! Travis and I need your help with this one. We set out to do some science, which unfortunately didn’t work. The idea is to use polarity to make water bend, using nothing more than a comb, a ruler, and some freshly-shampooed hair. But our water stayed straight – rats! So will this work for you?

First, we turned the faucet on to just a thin stream, and placed a ruler across the sink for an accurate test – the water hit right about the 6 inch mark.

We held the comb up to the water, to ensure we were starting with no bend to the water stream.

Travis was fresh from the bath, so we ran the comb through his just-washed hair to generate static. These negative particles should then attract the positive particles in the water, which kids will be familiar with if they understand magnets and “opposites attract.”

Online testers of this experiment seemed to have no trouble, saying the comb bent the water stream as much as 3 inches! But we saw no movement.

Did his hair need to be dry? We waited for it to air-dry, then tested again. Still no movement.

Knowing that it was static we were after, we then tried running the comb through a blanket right out of the dryer – one that was full of static! And still our water didn’t bend.

So, posting this game here for my readers in the hopes that someone else has better luck. If so, what worked? Can you figure out why? We’re eager to make the water bend next time!