Water is a remarkable compound. It expands and floats instead of sinks when it becomes a solid. It will pull itself through a siphon. It’s a universal solvent.
Because of its unique and amazing properties, water can do a lot of things that don’t make sense unless you understand the science behind it all. There’s potential to do magic here.
Plenty of devices use water to create mind-boggling effects and illusions. Here are a few:
- Drinking Bird (Wikipedia) – A novelty contraption that uses water and dichloromethane to create what appears to be a perpetual motion device (but is not)
- Minto Wheel (Wikipedia) – A wheel that uses propane and warm water to spin
- Steam Engines (Wikipedia) – Engines that use pressure from heated water to operate
- Frequency illusions (video) – Where sound traveling through water is synced with video frame rate to create an illusion
- Chain reactions with water (Youtube) – A collection of chain reactions using water as a catalyst
- Hydraulics (Wikipedia) – Harnessing the power of fluids
- Water wheel (Wikipedia) – Using flowing water to spin a turbine
- Archimedes’ screw (Wikipedia) – A rotating screw that can lift water
- Moving sand art (Youtube) – Interesting effects of sand dispersing through water
- Light effects in water – Water can have interesting effects on light
- Watering globes (Youtube) – Bulbs that store water and gradually release it to the ground
- Lava lamp (Wikipedia) – Using light, heat, wax, and water to create a novelty effect
There are so many others. Like the effect of bubbles rising through water. Or how oil separates in water. Or dropping denser liquids through water.
You can find myriad water novelty contraptions being sold across online retail stores like Amazon or in shopping malls. Can you come up with a unique way to harness the properties of water? If you can, you will have a product that people will pay money for.
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