William Hector's Blog

I know it’s a year late but I’ve finally got round to writing about what happened. Basically we built it but we failed to get any soft of visible waveform. Part of the problem was we did it outside and even very slight wind caused a massive disturbance of the flames.

This is the first set of pictures of the built day, they’re un organised so there may be some pointless ones in there.

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A month or so later we persuaded our Physics teacher to let us run it at school in his classroom. We actually managed to get a visible standing wave due to two things, first there was no wind and secondly I miscalculated what the frequency should be because I forgot that propane is of different density to air. Also using a square wave provided a better view.

Unfortunately no pictures were taken of this however someone spectating have posted a YouTube video of it.

Max is the guy who keep relighting it, You don;t see me until the end as I’m adjusting the sound. At the end (About 4:02) I’m the other guy next to max also wearing a brown shirt.

Edit:

Found the rest of the pictures, over 100 of them:

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Firstly the penultimate delivery arrived today which contained the drill bits, speaker and safety equipment (masks and gloves). Secondly whilst most of the construction and actually using it is happening on Saturday, I decided that it would be a good idea to start the drilling of the pipe today so we didn’t have to waste time Saturday.

The tube is 3m long and there are holes every 1cm with a 10cm margin either end, therefore 280 holes. We ordered both 0.5mm and 1mm drill bits, starting with the smallest. So my brother and I started by affixing a drill stand to a workbench and used some pieces of wood to support the tube whilst drilling.

The first problem was that because the drill bits were so thin, when the chuck was fully closed the bit could still slide in and out, luckily I used some electrical tape to pad out the bit thus enabling it to fit on.

Here are some construction pics (click for original image)

My brother marking the holes on masking tape (I gave up after 20)

Drill Setup

Close-up of the drill bit

My Brother doing some drilling

Me Drilling (The bit is so small and spinning so fast that you can’t actually see it in this shot, but it is there)

You may have noticed there is an absence of any gas fittings etc, a large delivery of about 60 items including all piping, jointed, fittings and regulators.

Also we’ve got some marshmallows to toast

For my latest project (first), my friend, Max, and I are building a Rubens’ tube, a big Rubens’ tube. We’re using a 3m long piece of galvanized steel, 8mm copper tubing, propane tank, etc. Everything is on order, so far the following things have arrived:

Steel Tube:

Propane Tank

And, just in case:

Fire Extinguisher

Latex Sheet – For Diaphragm

It is taking place this Saturday (22nd May). Watch my blog for the pictures and video.