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Re: Too quiet? You just need a smoke-ring gun!



We used a classroom trashcan with a rubber sheet in grad school.

I'm gonna try a 'Pringles' can or such.

I seem to remember a coupla cardboard box + mylar giftwrap +
bunjie cords being used in the Marriott in New Orleans AAPT ~ 5 years
ago.


At 12:24 PM -0700 6/26/02, Bernard Cleyet wrote:
Some time ago (I think from Sci. Am. -- couldn't find it in the Amateur
Scientist) I learned to make a smoke ring generator using a large (3#)
coffee can and its plastic cover. Simply, cut a one inch hole in the
center of its bottom. I used a chassis punch (this is an indication of
how long ago). Tho this one is smaller, it is much more quickly made.

bc

P.s. Bruce Denardo used a card box one when he gave his interesting and
unusual demos. lecture at the Fall NCNAAPT meeting last year at NPS.

Gary Turner wrote:

Or make one! I remember being given that as a homework assignment in an
atmospheric physics class.

You need a small cardboard box - cut a large hole in one end & cover it
with a plastic sheet. Tape it to give a (fairly) air-tight seal. Cut a
smaller hole in the other end.

Somehow (a bit of ingenuity), fill the box with smoke (and preferably not
your dorm room as well). Whack the plastic sheet to form an air pulse that
comes out of the smaller hole. You may have a smoke ring.

Now you can play around with the size of the hole, strength of hit, amount
of smoke, etc. The coolest toys are those you can make and then destroy by
experimentation.

That, and finding the natural frequencies of oscillation in a coffee cup
are the only 2 homework assignments I recall from grad school - and they
> were both from the same class!