PowderAde Blog

The lab started off with us putting the PowderAde drinks in order from least concentrated to most concentrated. The darker the drink was, the more concentrated the drink was because the drink gets darker as more PowderAde mix is added. As more PowderAde mix is added, the drink gets more concentrated. So, the darker the drink is, the more concentrated it is.

I had to work with 2 drinks, Mia’s and Diego’s. I had to use a spectrometer to figure out the concentration of Diego’s drink. It was shown by the green bar and the chart below it. It was 0.361, but we had to use 2 significant figures. A significant figure is the first figure to the right of 0. So, 2 significant figures would be the first 2 digits after zero, In this case, that would be .36. For the other drink I had to examine, Mia's drink, the concentration was 0.48.


This was the part of the virtual lab where I had to make PowderAde to match the concentration of Diego's drink. I had to drag distilled water, a beaker, and PowderAde onto the screen to make the drink. I had to drag Diego's drink onto the screen so I could match it with the one I created. I ended up using a 600mL beaker and only putting 250mL of distilled water in it so there would be room for the powder. I put 5 grams of PowderAde in at a time and there ended up being 15 grams in the 250mL of distilled water. I was looking for grams per liter though. So, I multiplied 15 by 4 because 250 goes into 1000 4 times and there are 1000mL in a liter. I ended up getting 60g of PowderAde per Liter or 60g/L. 

I had to do the exact same thing I did with Diego's drink, with Mia's drink. I checked my answer to see if it matched up with the 2 significant figures I had found earlier that showed the concentration of Mia's drink, 0.48. After adding 20 grams of the PowderAde to the 250mL of distilled water, the colors of the drinks matched. So, using the same logic I did for Diego's drink, I found that Mia has 80 grams of PowderAde mix per liter of water or 80g/L.



I had to do several conversions to find out different information about Diego's and Mia's drinks. This first conversion was to find out how many grams of PowderAde mix would be in 500mL of Diego's drink if it had his preferred concentration. On the bottom of the conversions, it said what I was supposed to be looking for. I had to find the concentration at first and then cancel out certain units to find the overall volume and the answer was calculated for me. As I went on, there were more conversions to do and I had to enter the units, the numbers, and the answer. 

There were conversions done to see how much of Mia's and Diego's drinks could be made with one pack of PowderAde which contained 30 grams. 500mL of Diego's drink could be made and 375mL of Mia's drink could be made but only used 28mL of PowderAde. Then, conversions had to be made to find out how much sugar was in each drink if the PowderAde is 45% sugar. Diego's drink had 
14 grams of sugar and Mia's drink had 13 grams of sugar. 

So, although Mia's drink is more concentrated than Diego's, it contains less sugar because she can only create 375mL of her drink so she has 2 grams of PowderAde left over. Diego can create 500mL of his drink and can use the whole packet. This means that he has more PowderAde in his drink than Mia does in her drink therefore making his drink more sugary. 

In conclusion, the concentration of a drink is affected by the amount of powder and the amount of water in a drink. The amount of water does not determine whether the concentration is higher or lower that another drink in a comparison. A 350mL drink could have a higher concentration that a 700mL drink. Concentration affects the color of a drink and the taste of a drink, so find out what concentrations of drinks you like best and stick with them!