Awesome Experiments

Drones can be used to capture aerial images or deliver packages, but they can also be weaponized. Mark Rober explores some of the technology being developed to take down dangerous drones. Then, he teamed up with fellow makers to build backyard drone defense tech, including a mega-turret, an electrified stream of liquid, and a powerful vortex cannon.

Science educator Steve Mould shows off a fascinating thing that happens when you ignite lighter fluid in a narrow channel. The flame travels around and around until the fuel is fully burned. He started with a circle and tested various shapes to see how the flames behaved. Along the way, you’ll learn about the concept of an excitable medium.

We’ve seen time and time again that there are other ways to move around besides ordinary wheels. LEGO builder Dr. Engine put together vehicles that run on seven kinds of wheels to see how they performed against various obstacles, including a pile of tires, a staircase, and a hill covered with wood chips. It ends with a tug-of-war between the vehicles.

After seeing the airplane-like shape of Japan’s high-speed bullet trains, aerospace engineer Peter Sripol thought it would be fun to build a model airplane based on the design. It took a lot of experimentation with wing placement, but he eventually got his prototype to fly. Will the scaled-up model stay airborne or will it derail mid-flight?

NileBlue wanted to recreate grapples: apples that taste like grapes. You’d think it would be a complicated process involving genetics and plant breeding, but it turns out to be a hilariously simple task. We’re not going to spoil it, but the video ends up explaining why grapples are not around anymore and why you shouldn’t try making your own.

If you put a powerful fan on a boat and blew it at its sail, would the boat move? Engineer Mark Rober channels Mr. Wizard with a series of experiments and easy-to-understand explanations of this and six other perplexing physics questions. He also debunks a viral video along the way.

When you heat fluids, they typically produce patterns. Science expert Steve Mould built a special rig that lets us see how these turbulent patterns emerge when applying heat. He tested with a few different liquids and particles to visualize these fascinating flows. Things get really interesting when mixing oil with mica.

Over a decade ago, Destin from Smarter Every Day and his pal John Henry tested the idea that you could light a match with a bullet. Now that he’s got a much better high-speed camera, he and John wanted to revisit the experiment. Once they dialed in the aim, they captured some incredible slow-motion macro footage at speeds up to 380,117 FPS.

We’ve seen what happens when introducing a red-hot metal sphere to a jawbreaker. So what do you think will happen if you place a molten copper ball into a glass filled with popcorn kernels? Snap Object has the answer. After a slow start, things really get going once a little oil is added to the mix. We’re impressed that the glass didn’t crack.

Filling tires with nitrogen instead of air can reduce air loss and boost fuel economy. But filling them with LIQUID nitrogen is an absolutely terrible idea since the stuff comes out of the jug at -320 °F (− 196 °C). That didn’t stop Superkot from trying it out on his Miata. It’s only a matter of minutes before the cryogenic fluid causes the tires to fail spectacularly.

We’ve seen a machine designed to test the suspension on LEGO cars. Here’s a series of nine LEGO Technic vehicles, each rolling on a unique suspension setup. Dr. Engine built and tested each of the rides to see which design had the best shock absorption, load handling, and rock crawling abilities.

Peter Sripol is no stranger to making unusual aircraft. In this video, he builds and tests out three weird designs for airworthiness, including a plane with a fuselage made from springs, a propeller that works like a tank tread, and a ridiculous set of wings that resemble Venetian blinds.

At a speed of 30 MPH, a skateboard wheel spins at about 5000 RPM. The guys at the Waterjet Channel wanted to see how quickly they could get a wheel to spin under the pressure of their 60,000 PSI waterjet. After realizing that ordinary plastic wheels wouldn’t hold up, they milled their own out of aluminum.

Contrary to popular belief, one horse is said to produce about 15 horsepower. But that number is disputed because there’s some question about the accuracy of the original measurements. With the help of Motivo, the guys from Donut came up with a new test: connecting a horse to a dynamometer to measure its true pulling power.

We would say, “Don’t try this at home,” but most of us don’t have a cauldron of molten lava or a vat of acid lying around. Mark Rober’s video includes a series of experiments in which he and his pals tested the destructive abilities of lava, acid, and some wildcards. The video culminates in a challenge to see which could kill a car engine quicker.

Destin from Smarter Every Day and his pals got together for an unusual competition. The goal? Evaluate the power and durability of eight kinds of weed eater lines as they whack into each other at full speed. The battle took place in front of a high-speed camera to see exactly what happened in slow-motion.

If you set off an explosion next to a bullet, would the shockwaves affect its path? That’s the question that The Slow Mo Guys and the Colorado School of Mines sought to answer in this fascinating experiment. It took several tries to get the timing right between the explosion and the passing bullet, but it gave them an excuse for more explosions.

After seeing those egg drop challenge videos, engineer James Bruton was inspired to try the same idea, but with a human instead of an egg. He teamed up with the folks from Kids Invent Stuff to build competing structures that can protect their precious cargo when dropped from a crane. Fortunately, James already built a crash test dummy.

How colors work can be quite fascinating – especially when it comes to light and shadow. Instagrammer art.pete.repeat offers a simple yet effective demonstration of how additive colors behave by aiming red, green, and blue flashlights at card stock. Pete posted another video explaining the setup. (Thanks, Rob!)

Since they’re made from plastic, LEGO bricks probably don’t stand a chance against a 150-ton hydraulic press, right? They’re stronger than you might think. Lauri from the Hydraulic Press Channel shows exactly how much force the ABS plastic building blocks can endure when assembled. Distributing the pressure across a larger surface area certainly helps.

The opposing forces of magnets can produce a tremendous amount of energy, and can even be used to levitate and move trains along a track. In this clip from Magnetic Games, he demonstrates these physics at work, though on a smaller scale using a bunch off-the-shelf neodymium magnets he got from Supermagnete.

A little while back, JK Brickworks built a circular LEGO machine that knocks over dominoes and stands them back up. In this video, he experiments with the concept a bit more based on reader comments. In addition to changing their face colors, he tweaks the machine’s speed, adds a second carriage, and swaps in a colorful rainbow of dominoes.

Quiet Nerd wanted to know if a squirrel running in a wheel could generate enough electricity to charge a phone. He built his squirrel-sized wheel using a baking pan and a stepper motor to recharge a battery pack. Once he placed it in the woods, all kinds of animals checked it out, but did they generate enough energy? We bet a hamster would be more effective.