We have described a soap bubble deflation experiment that makes a wonderful undergraduate project. This project has strong experimental and theoretical components that can be understood by physics majors, yet is challenging enough to maintain the interest of the brightest students. The basic ex- periment is fairly straightforward with the exception of the precision manometer, which might be unfamiliar to students. A manometer can be purchased for less than $100, and stu- dents should not have much difficulty getting it working. The most difficult part of the experiment is analyzing the images. A good image analysis program is critically important. Stu- dents will likely have much more difficulty with the theoret- ical analysis, which can be overwhelming if not handled carefully. Breaking down the analysis into small pieces and assigning them one at a time are essential to helping students make timely progress.
If appropriate care is taken to analyze the data, the results