This former NASA engineer, Mark Rober has found an interesting scientific way to make the solid sand to behave like liquid—and it looks fun!
Rober not only documented the whole process but he also filled in his bathtub with the special sand to have fun with it! In the entertaining video, Rober showed something called ‘fluidized air bed’ which needs quite an explanation.
From this solid sand,
To this liquid-like sand!
“A physical phenomenon occurring when a quantity of a solid particulate substance is placed under appropriate conditions to cause a solid or fluid mixture to behave as a fluid.”
In order to make the sand ripple and bubble like liquid, Rober was simply using air. He blew air into the bottom of a container of sand, increased the space between individual sand particles, reducing internal friction and allowed the particles to move around more freely—just like liquid.
So you can actually play like you’re in a pool.
And get comfortable in it.
“I’ve wanted to build one for a long time. But you can find literally no information online on how to make one like that. So I started combing through a bunch of patent drawings for massive industrial-sized fluid beds, and I noticed that instead of one big inlet, they all had a bunch of small holes to deliver air,” explained Rober.
The sand acts just like water.
And flows like water too.
Life is not all bed of roses, Rober actually had 25 failed versions before arriving at his first successful working design! Definitely worth every second and all the effort he put into because the end result was amazing.
You might want one after watching the video:
