Today we take a closer look at yesterday’s fountain.
Materials
A water fountain.
Observations
Here we get a chance to observe the spray as it comes out a little bit closer. The look of the spray is always driven by the shape of the hole. This is a home made fountain so these have irregularly scaled holes which makes for some interesting spray shapes that normally you don’t catch on a professional fountain, at least not that I’ve observed. Most sprays are much finer than this one, this spray seems to be much thicker and a bit more chaotic.
Observations
This is another neat look at fluid dynamics. Here we have a chance to observe the spray itself the path it follows as well as the impact splash. We also have a chance to look at the shapes the water forms as it flows through the air. Tomorrow we will take a closer look at the sprays themselves.
Procedure
There are some things that just don’t need elaboration.
Result
It’s a sprinkler, I’m sure all of you are familiar with the results of turning one on. If not, watch the video and you will be.
Observations
The stream that occurs before full pressure has been built up was a lot more interesting that the actual spray in my opinion. The curvature of the stream resulting from the increase in initial velocity as the pressure increases should have been expected but was nevertheless a surprise, a pleasant one though. I like the look of it. The motion of the sprinkler arm and its effect on the sprinkler head was neat to see at this speed. The stream itself, which ordinarily looks to be a fairly solid stream, at this speed is clearly interrupted by the arm. It was also neat to watch the kink fill out as the pressure in the hose built.
Today we look at the effect of a bullet on a concrete cinder block.
Materials
Cinder blocks
Ruger 223.
Procedure
Ready….aim…..FIRE!
Result
A small explosion of dust and concrete chunks.
Observations
It is interesting to note the difference between the entry and exit dust sprays. The initial entry point dust explosion is rather small where as the exit is quite large, I surmise this is from the bullet flattening. The spray of debris resulting from the impact and split is interesting to study. One can see a fairly even distribution of larger and smaller chunks. I am rather curious as to how much of the debris is caused from the bullet as it impacted the second wall. The bullet would have been much larger and flatter on the second impact than the first so I would suspect that the larger debris comes from that impact as opposed to the first. I would like to re-shoot this shot in profile to really get a glimpse of what is happening to the block itself.
Today we have another shot of Tannerite exploding in slow motion, this time however we have added a 30gallon drum filled with water to the mix. This is one that really benefits from stepping through frame by frame.
Materials
Two charges of Tannerite in a 20oz bottle.
30gallon plastic drum filled with water.
High powered rifle.
Procedure
Strap the bottle to drum and fire away.
Result
Kabooom! An explosion of water and smoke is the end result of the above procedure.
Observations
The most fascinating point of observation on this shot to me is the initial frames of the explosion. The explosion, then implosion then larger explosion is incredibly interesting to watch. The other thing I like is the barrel at the end of the shot. I’ll leave out the description of it as you no doubt have at least one eye of your own so I won’t spoil it.
Yesterday was another fun day at Matt Deal Farms. This time around Matt helped us out by doing a bit of driving for us. This is a slow motion shot of his truck flipping its back end around in the dirt.
Materials
A Ford F-250.
A driveway with a lot of soft, loose dirt.
Procedure
Living in a place with all of the above materials may eventually lead you to figure out the procedure on this one, I cannot describe it never having done it myself.
Result
Wow. Clouds and clouds of dust and dirt.
Observations
Where does one even start with a shot like this? I could sum it up in one word, and in fact already did under the results. Wow. I love the way this particular shot turned out. The formation of the cloud is incredible to watch, the rolling of the dust, the billowing of the cloud, the streamers of dirt from the tires. I’m going to leave the observation here to you. I’ve watched it several times at this point and have absolutely no words that I can add to make it any more interesting than it already is.
Today we look at that pseudo-jello I made being shot with a bb.
Materials
Jello
Spring powered bb gun.
White poster board.
Procedure
Place a square of jello on the board and then shoot it.
Result
The ripples coming off of the impact are fascinating to watch. The Jello is, amazingly, dense enough to catch and stop the bb in roughly 1/4″. It really is no wonder this jello was terrible to eat. It takes an incredibly long time (relatively) for the jello to stop jiggling. I will leave the rest of the observation as an exercise for the class as I am a tad short on time today. We have been working on some really neat stuff that I hope to be posting soon, but first I must run out and pick up some more gun powder.
