Hi and welcome back. Today I created a YouTube channel, Experimental Perception, and put up my first video with the help of my nephew James. The channel is going to be all about doing random DIY experiments and seeing if our perception the end result compares with reality. If you have ever seen the TV series Mythbusters, or watched some of videos from The King of Random or the Slow Mo Guys, you will probably relate to what we are trying to accomplish.
In our first video we created a vacuum cannon that shoots ping pong balls. In essence it is a piece of PVC cut to 2 feet and is capped on each end with Mylar plastic. Once all of the air is sucked out, creating a strong vacuum inside, it creates a force with the outside air of about 28 pounds per square inch. So when you pop one end of the Mylar, the ping pong ball will go shooting out the other side at a rate of around 370mph! We tested it!
Now, a ping pong ball is not very heavy though, so while it is moving really fast, I did not know how much kinetic energy it would have. To test this, we shot a water balloon and a soda can. When it hit the water balloon it created a really impressive dome of water that we caught on the slow motion camera. The soda can was less spectacular since it did not puncture the can.
In a future video we will increase the length of the PVC to 8 feet and replicate the experiments to see if a longer PVC will speed up the ball faster. We will also shoot a few other things just to see what it looks like in slow motion. Maybe a tomato or egg, something that will create a big mess to clean up afterwards 🙂
At any rate, please visit the video link below and check it out. If you like what you see click the like button and subscribe. Ring the bell to be notified of future videos that we make as they are released.
And as always.. thanks for watching!
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