Cooking with Waves Nina and the Neurons

# If you've got a question and you don't know where to go

# Ask Nina for some help Cos she's got a science show

# She makes sense of her senses While helping all her fans

# By doing her experiments with potions and with bangs

-# Touch your tongue

-Tongue!

-# Fingers

-Fingers!

-# Eyes.

-Eyes!

-Ears.

-Ears!

-Nose.

-Nose!

# Nina and the Neurons find out what you need to know

# Nina and the Neurons find out what you need to know

# Luke, he helps us with our eyes and Felix with our touch

# Ollie sniffs out smells and scents And Belle, she hears so much

# Bud is Ollie's brother He helps us with our taste

# They're Nina's little neurons And they're coming to your place!

-# Touch your tongue

-Tongue!

-# Fingers

-Fingers!

-# Eyes.

-Eyes!

-Ears.

-Ears!

-Nose.

-Nose!

# Nina and the Neurons find out what you need to know

# Nina and the Neurons find out what you need to know

# Oh, yeah! #

Hello! I'm just doing a little experiment

to find out what happens if I pop a lovely grape in my mouth,

and I've discovered that it goes all juicy

and tastes delicious!

Maybe I should have another one just to check my findings are correct!

-BEEP, BEEP!

-Oh!

I hear a beep, I see a flash - I wonder what they're going to ask!

ALL: Hi, Nina!

Hello there!

We've got a question for you, Nina. How does a microwave oven work?

That's a great question! How does a microwave oven work?

Come down to my workshop and we'll check it out.

-Bye.

-Bye!

I'm going to need help to answer this one. I know just who to ask!

OK, Neurons! Time to get to work.

ALL: Neurons at the ready, Nina!

OK. Today's question is, how does a microwave oven work?

Which Neuron will be most useful in finding the answer?

ALL: Me, me! Me!

Will it be...fabulous Felix?

I can help so very much if you need the sense of touch.

Will it be...beautiful Belle?

I send messages to brain from ear.

If there's a sound, I'll help you hear!

Will it be...lovely Luke?

For looking and seeing, day or night I'll help with your sense of sight!

Will it be...awesome Ollie?

If it's pongy or whiffy, but you can't tell,

my messages help your sense of smell.

Or will it be baby Bud?

Sour, salty, bitter or sweet,

I'm your taste-buddy whenever you eat!

-Yippee!

-It's Ollie and Bud.

Go Bud, go Ollie! Go Bud, go Ollie!

-Go Bud, go Ollie! Go Bud!

-Yippee!

It's you and me, sis!

Stand by for a taste-and-smellathon!

Today's question is, how does a microwave oven work?

We use microwave ovens to cook food.

Bud and Ollie are the Neurons who help us taste it!

But stand by, Neurons - I may need help from all of you.

I need to get the workshop ready before the Inventors arrive.

Thomas, Cariad and Joseph want to find out about microwave ovens.

Big ones, small ones, cooking-really-fast ones.

So today, for one day only, they become...the Inventors!

Hi, guys!

-Hi, Nina!

-Come on in, come on in.

Thanks for coming, and thank you for your brilliant question -

how does a microwave oven work? Why do you want to know that?

We use it a lot to heat our snacks and cook our food.

And we wonder how it manages to do it so quickly.

When food, especially raw food gets very hot, it cooks,

and if we cook our food, we're heating it up, ready to eat.

We know what a microwave does, but how does it do it?

Let's get inside and have a closer look!

Taking things apart is my job. It can be dangerous.

Don't do this yourself.

That's right. Nina's been specially trained to do this.

If you open up things that use electricity,

you could hurt yourself.

So let's have a look at the inside of a microwave.

I'm going to use my Nina-cam here...

So we've got lots of wires, and there's a fan in there...

-What's that?

-This grey box here?

-Yeah.

This is a magnetron, and it's one of the most important parts.

Here's what a magnetron looks like outside of a microwave.

A magnetron sends out invisible waves called microwaves.

They change our food from cold to hot.

But how do they do that?

Actually, I can show you.

Come round here! Oh-oh-oh!

We're going to imagine that these bouncy balls are microwaves,

and these plastic vegetables are food inside a microwave oven.

Let's see what happens when we throw microwaves at the food.

Go!

All the pieces of food are moving about.

And the same happens in a microwave oven.

The magnetron throws microwaves into the food

and the tiny pieces of food jiggle against each other.

This heats up our food.

Microwaves aren't just used for cooking food.

They're useful for something else.

-Shall we go and see another invention in action?

-Yes!

Let's go!

Look at them go! I wonder where they'll end up today.

What else uses microwaves? Nina said it was something very big.

I haven't got a clue!

Ah, goody! I think we're here now!

This is a weather observatory.

It's where people find out what the weather's like.

This is a big radar dish that sends out microwaves

and catches them if they bounce back!

Wowee!

Look at the size of that dish!

Well, it's got to be big if it's going to catch all those microwaves.

Microwaves don't just cook food.

They also bounce off certain things, like clouds and rain.

When a microwave hits a cloud, it's a bit like a bouncy ball

hitting a wall... Ooh-ooh! Ha-ha!

..and bouncing back.

But if there's no wall there...

the bouncy ball doesn't bounce back.

Microwaves are the same. If they don't bump into a cloud,

they don't bounce back. If this radar dish

sends microwaves into the sky,

and they bounce back, we know they've hit something like a cloud,

even if they're far away.

How do they do that?

Let's go inside and find out. Here we go.

This is the control room and all these colourful pictures

are made using information from the radar dish.

It doesn't look like rain.

It doesn't, but these pictures tell us lots about the weather -

like where it's raining or how heavy the rain is,

even the shape of a raindrop.

By using a radar dish like this, we can find out the weather forecast.

Is that how the weatherman on TV knows all about the weather?

Yes! That's right.

How do microwaves make our food hot?

To find that out, we need to go back to the workshop.

Come on, Inventors. Let's get inventing!

Microwave ovens are handy things to have in the kitchen.

I wonder who actually invented them.

Me, me, I know that one.

The microwave oven was invented by a man called Percy Spencer.

One day he was busy inventing things in his lab

and standing in front of a magnetron.

Suddenly he noticed that waves from the magnetron

had melted a chocolate bar in his pocket. Eugh!

What a mess!

He decided to try something else, so he got some popcorn.

Moments later - pop, pop, pop!

There was popcorn everywhere.

Percy realised that if he put the magnetron into a box

that he could invent the first ever microwave oven.

Your question was, "How does a microwave oven work?"

So far we've found out that inside a microwave

is something called a magnetron.

A magnetron sends out invisible waves called microwaves.

When microwaves hit food, they make all the tiny pieces of food move.

But why would making food move make it hot?

Let's try something.

Let's all rub our hands together like this.

-What's happening to your hands?

-KIDS: They're getting hot.

The same thing happens

when particles of food move together quickly.

Nina, all that hand rubbing is making me feel a bit flushed.

Maybe we could invent something

that will show us the force of invisible waves.

KIDS: Yeah!

Today we're going to invent our invisible wave bowling game.

First take your cup,

and we're going to cut a hole in the bottom of the cup...

That's good. Just a little hole.

You may need to ask an adult to help you with tricky scissor bits.

Now we've made the hole in the bottom of the cup,

we're going to take our plastic bag,

lay it out in front of you,

pop the open part of your cup into the middle of the bag...

I'm going to draw a line so I know where to cut.

Once you've cut out the plastic, take one of our rubber bands...

-And stretch it over the top.

-That's right.

This is going to act like our little magnetron.

But first we have to cut out our veggie skittles.

Once you've cut out the veggie skittles and their bases

you just slot them together.

This means they'll be able to stand on their own.

Line up your veggie skittles. OK.

To start your magnetron, point it towards your skittles

and flick the plastic. Go for it!

NINA CHUCKLES

Well done!

Ha-ha! There you have it!

You've made your own invisible wave bowling game.

# Nina and the Neurons. #

Your question was, "How does a microwave oven work?"

I think we've answered it. Inside a microwave oven

is a magnetron and a magnetron throws microwaves at food.

A microwave is an invisible wave that bounces off things like clouds,

but goes into something like food.

When microwaves hit food

they make all the tiny little pieces of food rub together very fast.

when things rub together fast, they get hot

and when food gets hot, it cooks.

And that's how a microwave oven cooks our food.

Thank you for your question today.

KIDS: Thanks, Nina. Bye!

Bye.

If you want to make today's invention,

go the Nina section on the CBeebies website.

That will give you the instructions to make your own,

or you may have other ideas to invent.

-Bikes.

-Crates.

-Binoculars.

-Television.

-Speakers.

-And cars.

# We all love inventing

# Whoa-oa-oa-oa go inventing

# We all love inventing

# Why don't you try it too?

# Inventions make life easier

# And help us get things done

# Go inventing

# I always like to take a look

# At how they work and run

# Go inventing

# We all love inventing

# Whoa-oa-oa-oa go inventing

# We all love inventing

# Why don't you try it too? #

Oh, I've had a brilliant day.

Microwave ovens are such a clever invention.

I've had a fabby day.

I loved watching the inventors bounce balls into pretend food

to show how the microwaves worked.

I really enjoyed myself today.

Gosh, that radar dish was enormous.

Imagine all the microwaves it must catch.

It's been such a great day, man.

Did you see those radar pictures of clouds? They were far out!

It's been a marvellous day. Making the carrots move was so much fun.

Our day's been bursting with inventions.

I hope you've enjoyed it. See you soon.

ALL: Bye!