"The Bubble Man" Challenges Students to Pursue the Impossible

“The Bubble Man” Geoff Akins told students he was going to make a square bubble.

He couldn’t do it with a square wand dipped in bubble formula, but he refused to believe people who told him it was impossible.

“Just because something is possible doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy,” Akins, of Barrington, said Monday afternoon.

His show, sponsored by the school’s PTO, was peppered with tricks that made the elementary school children giggle, cheer and clap.

Akins explained that bubbles have three “enemies” that pop them: dry surfaces, wind and children. (With the exception of three helpers, the children remained seated throughout his presentation.)

He demonstrated how to keep a bubble floating in front of him by fanning it with his hand. He had a volunteer from the audience help him show students how to stick a pencil inside a bubble without popping it by wetting the pencil with bubble solution first.

After the volunteer popped the bubble with the pencil eraser, which was dry, he handed her a cloth to dry her hands.

“Sometimes science gets a little messy, but it’s just soap and water,” he said. “I call it good, clean fun.”

Creating a square bubble was a little more complicated, though. He created a white, filmy bubble first and then formed six bubbles around it, which created the six sides of the square.

Then, he encouraged students to find their own challenge, their own “square bubble.”

“What’s your dream?” he asked. “What’s the impossible thing you’re going to do? What’s your square bubble?”

Download the movie