HOW TO - Make a "Time Fountain"

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Nathan made an incredible "Time Fountain" fluorescent drops illuminated by LEDs, he writes - "I suppose it might be called a "Backwards in Time Fountain" or a "Time Manipulation Fountain" but I figured those titles would be a bit long. Using an old battery-powered small fountain as a base, drops are pumped through a brass tube, falling out of the end at a very regular interval. A microcontroller coordinates the speed of the pump and the strobe rate of the LEDs." - Link.


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Posted by: n3ldan on August 7, 2006 at 9:15 PM

They have a (much large) one of these installed in one of MIT's building. There are two streams, which collide in the middle. It is very cool, although you can't touch it and control the collision.


Posted by: SonicReducer on August 7, 2006 at 9:35 PM

now this is a cool hack!


Posted by: natetrue on August 8, 2006 at 12:01 AM

Ah, I hadn't heard of the MIT one before. Seems like the right place to have one.

http://www.airynothing.com/photos/2005_11_boston/2005_11_boston-Pages/Image52.html

Seems a bit blurry, though I know how hard it is to take proper pictures and video of this kind of thing. I'd love to see it with my own eyes.


Posted by: aolshove on August 8, 2006 at 7:38 AM

Somebody please mirror the site. All you nerds have used up the poor guys bandwidth and I wanna build one too! :-)


Posted by: ivanski on August 8, 2006 at 8:12 AM

Not to knock this (it's very cool to see how to build one), but this is known as the Water Piddler, it's one of Doc Edgerton's classic demonstrations:

http://web.mit.edu/Edgerton/www/WaterPiddler.html
http://caes.mit.edu/projects/edgerton/screen03_piddler.html

I suspect it's easier to take pictures of Doc's because it uses a full blown strobelight (the original purpose of those being high-speed photography), not just LEDs.


Posted by: DGary on August 8, 2006 at 8:34 AM

Looks like a nine inch nails video, very cool effect


Posted by: Windell_Oskay on August 8, 2006 at 6:15 PM

Beautifully executed!


Posted by: JohnKit on August 8, 2006 at 6:47 PM

Very cool. I'll have to try to build one of these.


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