SpudFiles

hey guys I your probebly familiar with xkcd, but less familiar with the blog. anyway I found an interesting project idea in this blog post from an old book,
it's a pumpless fountain

and yes it doesn't violate the laws of physics, you do have to dump the lower chamber and fill the upper one to keep it going.

why build it? to confuse/impress your friends, you can disguise it to look like some sort of desktop bird bath, but then when you pour some water it's a fountain and then your friends will be like "OMG U HAX DA WATER", an you'll be like "LOL PWND" also it's a project I'm intrested in that I can actually do in my dorm, and yes I have a drill and drill bit kit in my dorm

the easy way out is to do something like this
but I'd like to make my fountain actually confusing for those who don't know so it will be a pillar made of two OJ bottles concealed behind something and a fancy disposable plastic bowl. it's an easy project so try it if your interested.

I remember seeing this on the blog, not quite "perpetual motion" but good stuff

I saw that on the blog

I used to have a simpler version of one of these, I'll draw up a quick diagram in a minute.

EDIT:

Here we go... sorry bout the quality, I forgot to make it a larger image before I drew it, and couldn't be arsed re-doing it bigger.



This particular version is a closed system, with the entire thing contained within the two bottles. The tubes each have small pinholes put into them near where they connect to the middle of the device. It works because a small amount of water flows into the holes on the upper tube, and this water is then pushed along by the air flowing up that tube until it is ejected from the top.

The good thing about this design is that once it's finished, you flip it over and it will go again. No need to refill it or empty any water out.

Funky stuff.

cool, I've just built mine and I just notice that I could refill it by turning it upside down and I was just thinking about building a reversible design, if I used that design would I have to be very precise with hole size angle placement and stuff

iknowmy3tables wrote:cool, I've just built mine and I just notice that I could refill it by turning it upside down and I was just thinking about building a reversible design, if I used that design would I have to be very precise with hole size angle placement and stuff

Not really, the one I had used a plastic bit to connect two soda bottles and had a couple of extra-thick straws as the tubes, with a few pinpricks in the straw. So long as the holes are big enough to let some water in without allowing so much as it trys to flow down the tube, then it will work.