I mean you can say they are impractical now tell he finds something that's better then we have. experimenting with these kinds of things can sometimes reveal better ways of doing things. like the people looking back at flywheels to make batteries with them. flywheels are old old but throw it into a vacuum chamber and have it use magnetic bearings to take almost all friction away and how long will it keep the energy inside it for. a long time. flywheels batteries are pretty neat.
Impressive that you worked out that nozzle design seemingly by intuition. I don't think I've ever encountered someone who found fluid dynamics intuitive.
6:50 you know maybe you’re getting pressure waves reflected on the chamber walls, as in two stroke exhaust chambers. There might be some formula to calculate the resonance frequency for a given geometry. With your high speed footage you could check if the vortex rings are forming at that frequency :)
I’ve done some very light work on this in school where we tuned our intake plenum/runners in order to have the best volumetric efficiency at a certain rpm. Same idea as a two stroke exhaust. It’s actually not super complex and mainly depends on runner length
This could be a job for a sprinkler valve. They're meant for water but will dump a large volume of air from an air tank instantly. I've used them in a few projects. Great for air cannons. Basically they use their own pressure to seal the air. When you apply a voltage to the solenoid it allows a small amount of air to release the pressure which releases a much larger valve instantly.
I'd look into an industrial QEV, quick exhaust valve. Similar in function to your sprinkler valves except better in every possible way and need no modification.
@@dontnubblemebro seconding this. I used a QEV for a potato gun when I was younger and it worked fantastically. I ordered it from McMaster Carr and it only cost me like 20 dollars!
they are barely fast enough, I think you would have to couple the sprinkler valve with a trapdoor style purge valve in order to get the optimal "waterhammer" type effect for a vortex.
That demonstration was never seen again because it involved ionic propulsion and collaterally demonstrated that it could move a much smaller projectile horizontally at speeds rivaling a bullet
oh my god I watched that same documentary! I can't remember exactly what they were using it for, but i thought it was something spacey, like an elevator climber or a solar sail demo, although they were getting a lot more thrust than photon pressure because of that plasma so maybe that's just what my young space-obsessed brain was thinking, not realizing it wouldn't work above the atmosphere... Anyway awesome project! I've wanted to work with vortex rings for a while but have found very little information and your cone/funnel/bin iteration was fascinating - I'd love a "speed of ring" equation as a function of air blast strength, time, cone length, and taper, but I don't think anybody has bothered to calculate that...
@@AlphaPhoenixChannel No this was still in the phase where channels like discovery and the history channel were still producing things with actual scientific value and educational content and hadn't gotten infected with the reality tv viral mutagen, and the groupthink of ancient aliens or cryptid/ mythological programs caused them to devolve into some poor facsimile that was somehow thought of as entertainment. Man those were the days Modern marvels and others like it were the shit and really what i can attribute a lot of my interest in science and the natural world to.
I think it was Scientific American Frontiers with Alan Alda. The amount of electricity they needed for the laser for one test was the "enough to run a town of 1,000 homes for three days" type analogies... not very practical for any sort of real lift. Also the gyro stabilization would be lethal for anyone aboard. It had that "Flight of the Navigator" vibe though, which was cool.
I remember seeing that same laser propulsion video when I was a kid! I think what's going on is they have a pulsed laser with an optics setup that makes a wide beam that's below the energy density that will cause air breakdown, and the highly polished "UFO" aircraft focuses that beam to a density that can cause air breakdown, and the plasma pop pushes it up a little bit. No idea what kind of laser power you'd need for this, but I'd guess into a pretty substantial average watts realm on a fast pulse. If someone on here can pull off reproducing it even at garage scale I'd be impressed.
Considering how long ago that was filmed, and the availability of "cheap" Chineesium lasers, it could well be possible to get the same results today with multiple lasers all firing at the same object...?
Let's say the metal thingy weights 100g. That would need roughly 4.8 watts with no losses according to SO. But it isn't that simple because levitating doesn't require any power. You can make for example magnets levitate indefinitely without any energy.
Always impressed with your inventiveness, your imagination, and your skill in reducing both to practice. All three result in steady and impressive progress.
If you want a really short, powerful burst of air, look into using a QEV (quick exhaust valve) with a solenoid-controlled pilot valve. That's what I used for the full auto pneumatic blaster on my channel. Normal solenoid valves have a very long opening/closing time. QEVs can dump entire secondary tanks in a fraction of the time.
Recently I also play with vortex ring generator using same technology as you. I tested same valve as you, but now I moved to 2v130-15. It has much larger orifice diameter that allows larger air flow with similar on/off cycle time. That resulted with larger and faster stable rings.
We used a trash bin with a hole mounted on a bass speaker which was powered by a step function generator. This setup could shoot across a room. It also showed very nice results when shooting with two of these synchronized towards each other.
That's cool! Also, with a speaker/actuator impulse device, the system parameters could be sufficiently controllable and repeatable to inform a (computer) model. If it can be modelled, it can also be iterated towards the best performance......
The Lightcraft was invented by Dr. Leik Myrabo. It used a high power laser aimed at the bottom a spinning, ringed disk . The laser hit heated the surface to produce thrust. Also the entire plane was spinning to stabilize it in flight.
Hi, well said mate well said! im 51 and i remember that aswell! fascinated the hell out of me and you are well correct there nice one! i was just going to say that aswell! i watch all the programs like that since way befor that one aswell! take care mate and have a fantastic day!
The vortices are single waves of a resonant frequency of the chamber. If you pulse the jets at half this frequency it will cause constructive interference and many times the power.
I'm an I&C engineer with lots of experience with Solenoid Valves. I'm a little surprised that you setup worked as well as it did. A larger SV would probably be a better choice. For a 2-way solenoid valve there are really only 3 variables, voltage, Cv and pressure rating. You can get a direct acting valve, or a pilot operated valve which is slower but can have a higher pressure rating. I'm interested in seeing where you are going to take this. I always learn so much from your commitment to testing!
Making the air less turbulent before it enters the vortex creator might help with accuracy. A 3d printed part that resembles the inside of a catalytic converter might work.
Hi Tom, yes I remember the silver saucer propulsion system quite vividly. I still have a VHS recording of that Hyper Science episode, I watched many times with my aero enthusiast cousin Marcus (Circa 2000). In fact that doco was produced by Beyond, the Aussie production house that started Myth Busters - fun fact.... The laser beam energy was concentrated to the ring and created a pulse of plasma energy that propelled the vehicle forwards. So cool right. Duby
You need to make sure the volume of the exit air "slug" needs to have a diameter to length ratio of 1:4 to create a well formed ring.. (Reynolds number critical)..
Wow, what a flashback. Seen that video in childhood decades ago on tv. It had quite an impression on me, but I actually sought it was the light pressure that pushes that thing back than.
I think you need to find the right oscillation frequency to resonate the internal drafting rings into the main one. Just like how two stroke exhausts are perfectly tuned to resonate the pressure waves, you just need to find the right size and shape of your cone to use that to your advantage.
2:41 I've heard about this. I've also heard that it's rubbish and doesn't actually affect the storm, which makes sense because no matter how powerful that box is, lightning and thunder will most certainly be stronger and they don't seem to stop the storm.
@@otm646 Yes, the Volkswagen case is quite well known -- they got into a conflict with farmers around the area who thought the hail canons had produced a drought. Hail cannons are made, sold, and used across the world (often around viniculture), despite having been tested thoroughly by scientists and having repeatedly been shown to have absolutely no effect on hail. If you know anything about physics/meteorology it becomes quickly clear that they could not work. There are always charlatans able to make money out of people's gullibility and desire to control the natural world around them.
If you are trying to protect crops from hail, wouldn't you need something ultrasonic that affects the hail particles at a high enough altitude that the change in terminal velocity of the broken up pieces has time to reduce their impact velocity? Or some highly distributed radar guided pulse laser setup. Either of which sounds more expensive than a retractable roof. Which also seems overwhelmingly expensive compared to the reward.
I was just like, "holy shit, yes, that could totally work." and it did. I love to see how you are breaking down the problem and requirements to create a hypothesis. Thanks and keep doing good stuff.
2:12 "The first is to use what I call a rubbish bin, because it would make a rubbish bin with such a large hole." I don't see anyone else talking about this top-tier joke, but it seriously deserves appreciation lol. As does the rest of the video, really great stuff.
You should use a “quick exhaust valve“ and dump it using the small valve you have. This is how they shoot air into the center of a filter of a vacuum system to clear the filter… I also watched this same show:)
You can make your valves close faster by using a snubber instead of your free wheeling diode. A snubber is basically a capacitor-diode-resistor combination that "catches" the electrons and dissipates them in the resistor instead of letting them flow freely through the solenoid. Basically converting the magnetic energy into potential energy in the capacitor, instead of letting it die down naturally. Edit: The smaller the capacitance, the faster. But this will also increase the voltage spike. So make sure your components can handle that and maybe use an optocoupler to protect your Arduino.
As a kid, growing up in the UK I remember in the mid 70's a clip on a TV BBC 1 news show called "Nationwide" which showed a person demonstrating a "flying disc" which seemed to be an aluminium toroid, and the inventor was describing it as using an eletrostatic vortex of air through the center. Memories are coloured by time however and I was 14 then but from what I recall, he was using a very early "bilp blip" one channel MacGregor pulse moduladed radio control to turn the power on. He placed the disk in a nearby field, pulesd his transmitter and the disc went up and away at amazing speed. the news clip was about 5 min long and was never repeated because had no watto bring it back. It always intrigued me and I have searched for that clip on the internet time and again but never found it in any BBC archive. I have looked into the J L Naudin and the Townsen-Brown electrostatic lifter experiments but the lifter has to be extremely lightweight to take advantage of the ionization. The Clip I remember showed a bulky rivited toroid lokking like about 2-3 Kg in weight. Wish I could find it today. Sorrry for babbling on and thanks so much for your constantly innovative and scientific analysis of of alternate propulsion systems. People like yourself are those who will lead us forwards out of the complacent aeronautical "norm" and compel us to revist the ideas of the likes of Viktor Schauberger.
If you are using pulsing, I believe you need the pulsing frequency of your air to match the natural resonance frequency of your exit cone. if you use a pressure sensor to measure the pressure at the exit of the cone with the exit blocked off, then graph the pressure vs air pulsing frequency to find the lowest frequency where that pressure is lowest(local min), then maybe use half that frequency to get max pressure at exit . At 6:30, looks like you see a resonance mode. Very cool slow mo footage!
I’m intrigued if having *another* air or combustion chamber *around* the conventional cone (potentially with a staggered initiation), it would boost the performance. Supposedly the air being entrained by the almost venturi like effect of the high speed cone air and the still surrounding air. I’m thinking have the core one go 2x, Surrounding bit go 1x. Although maybe you get vortex ring-ception! Also using something “faster” like hydrogen-oxygen, or even full on (H-O…) fired plug *compressed* hydrogen like a proper light gas gun may make it faster! Could also add injectors at the “throat” for some sort of fog or dye, almost like a Carburetor, to enhance visibility. Those are my ideas for someone like you to tinker with if you beat me to it! (Will need to be CC Attribute Share Alike Though!) (Context for the Thread Necromanc: Looking back at this after the recent Backyard Scientist bit (although it was a commercial product i guess, not his design) (Edit: Added Context)
your step by step approach to engineering problems like this has helped to to continue experimenting with ideas even tough i have failed like 6 times in a row.
Very interesting project! For someone who owns a smoke machine I'm surprised you haven't considered using a subwoofer with high enough Xmax as the vortex generator. I think it would allow for better control and tuning of the output, by modulating the frequency and amplitude. I would suggest something at least 12" like a Dayton, which are not overly expensive. Would you consider it?
Maybe one could combining the speaker as a power source with a pulse-jet style valve to quickly get air in front of it again. Maybe have the speaker in the center with a circular duct around it with one-way valves suppling air to the "work"-side of the cone. To help resupply air, it may be necessary to "boost" pressure using some radial fans (radial is better for pressure).
@@MazeFrame Yea this sounds interesting and on the loudspeaker topic i was wondering about how horn design principals might help in designing the cone, i know different outcome but it reminded me of that maybe even something like a venturi, it gets difficult adding fans and suck because turbulence is the enemy here so the smoother you can pull air in the better idk if its complicating it when its adding the driving force and the valve by the same mechanism but its interesting they do make rings themselves tho it comes down to what better outputs consistent driving force
The fast-cycling air valve could be very useful for blowing certain things with a shop compressor. Certain debris that catches in grooves or holes respond better to a quick burst than a steady stream of air. I find myself tapping the trigger or flicking the nozzle of my blow gun around, and that may do it better without all the commotion. Saves on air usage, too!
Easily earned my subscription. Great video! Love that you include the tries that didn't go as well and explain why you went with different designs - fantastic!
You are the first person to fully explain and actually show what curiosity stream is after hearing about it dozens of times. I’m planning on signing up. Great video!
I think with such a lightweight paper design, it would be difficult to get it spinning (especially without support), and the small amount of angular momentum would quickly be dissipated by friction/air resistance if you don't increase the mass, which would be counterproductive. But I'd love to be wrong/see the potential problems fixed. Interesting idea
"Instead of using a 2d printer. I should use a 3d program to convert my 3d model into a 3d template to print with a 3d printer to trace it with a pen and cut it with scissors." Tom Stanton's brain coming up with modern solutions to ancient problems.
Awesome, I've seen the laser projectile video as well when I was a kid and I have been searching for the footage for years. What were the sources for you, how did you find it back? Where can I find more about this laser-propelled, or should I say propulsed craft? It was so good to see it again.
this device you just saw is a atmospheric espansion based flying device. it works on the principle that most atmospheric gasses expand when they get hot. something like that is actually rather easy to replicate using a old camera flasher and some kind of gong. you can flash it at it and it will generate heat on the surface acting like a small explosion making it start to move and make sound. that flying design is basically the same but it uses a light thing, a much more powerful light which is focussed at generating more heat(IR). the device also has a special geometry to make sure the air gets pushed out and in with different direction balances meaning once the light pulses and the air heats up most air movement force is aimed downward, and once the new cold air flows it it takes more from the surrounding to minimize the downward force. luckily while a good geometry helps due to inertia of mass the particles send out will want to follow their direction once the air heats up and they have their movement. but the barely moving particles in the air will just be pulled in based on how close they are to the center making it pull from all sides and so not affect the thrust tom much. the top is also optimized against wind resistance since on impact it needs to accelerate fast for a short duration and for stability ofcource. btw. heating air a lot generates plasma, it might also be optimized specifically to focus on generating static charge for plasma instead of heat. but generating the heat and making that generate the plasma is much simpeler
These hailstorm canons dont work in breaking un hailstorms as far as i know. I think there are some science youtubers that have made some videos on it.
Waking up on a Saturday morning, seeing that there is a new Tom Stanton video, knowing it's going to be good. What a brilliant nozzle design! Awesome slow-mo footage as well! I remember when I first saw that laser propelled spinning top that I got really wound up about the fact that these people were really selling this idea as a viable future way of space travel - suggesting to put people into a device that spins at insane revs, being hit by thousands of pulses from a terawatt laser system, then not thinking about that the thing doesn't work without an atmosphere... It was an interesting experiment for sure, just like Tom's one, but no more than that.
Always very good, thank you. FWVLIW: You can propel 'craft' with ground lasers in broadly one of two ways: 1) With the photons themselves. At it's most basic you fire a laser at a sail. The photons hit the sail, and in the process transfer a little momentum to the 'craft'. There's more going on, and there are ways to improve efficiency over just using a reflective material. 2) As per the illustration. The 'craft' has a reflector designed to focus the laser light just behind it. The focussed laser light drastically heats the air just behind and the expansion of the gas (now likely plasma) provides the thrust. The devil is of course in the detail. Pros and cons: 1) Great for use in space as you can propel your 'craft' at relativistic speeds over huge distances, and you don't need to carry fuel. But as you don't get a lot of momentum transfer from photons you're going to be accelerating slowly and you want a really, a-hem, light 'craft'. 2) You get more thrust for the energy you put in which is good for acceleration and load carrying, but you need a propellent. Within the atmosphere that's no issue, but in space you'll have to carry that along with trying to manage coordinating it's use with a laser firing at you. I hope that was of interest to someone.
I always love watching your awesome projects! Always inspires me. I remember hearing about that kind of laser propulsion with Chevrolet's Chaparral 2X VGT concept car which used this technology to propel itself across the ground, crazy stuff which obviously excited my little brain!
Tom, maybe try absorbing the vortex from outside to inside of the paper parachute. Hopefully the vortex can rotate along the paper surface and be redirected and exited from the centrum of the paper parachute back into the cannons direction. Like in very efficient pelton wheel generators, where the water is redirected into the opposite direction resulting in more efficiency rather than just stopping the water/air particle.
Dandelions "fly" by creating and hanging on to a vortex ring. Their filaments being spread out radially from a point means that there's more drag in the center, which causes a vortex ring on top of the dandelion. Im not exactly sure how this helps the dandelion fly but I think it may be that the lowest pressure area is sitting on top of dandelion, pulling it upward. Maybe these dandelions are onto something.
Great video. On the next round, consider adding an adjustable time delay circuit to the valve switches to be able to tune the switches so the valves fire at the same time. This could eliminate the multiple rings and strengthen the vortex.
The Light Craft design (the original NASA experiment), was intended to be scaled up (and was). However, I think the Light Craft project (given its low budget) was actual a tiny part of a much larger picture (project). I'm sure the people researching the Light Craft didn't know that. They, were thinking "launch craft into space". However, the actual funders may have been thinking something completely different for this tech. Notice the Light Crafts shape, looks similar to an intake spike for certain high speed aircraft. Plasma tech, has all sorts of cool uses I'm betting :)
A vortex ring is more like a propagation of energy than a flow. It's basically a circular wave in the air. In water, a wave has a circular motion where the the water near the surface flows forward and the water near the bottom flows backwards. If the wave hasn’t broken, the water doesn’t have any real displacement over time. The vortex ring is similar to this where the air in the middle moves forward while the air around the outside is pulled back. The fog stays with the ring because it effectively rides the wave with all the air towards the center of the ring. This means the ring actually contains fairly little energy since it is such an efficient motion. Also, it would be interesting to try to make something that rides the wave in the center of the ring rather than have all the energy dissipated into a sail.
So, you'll need a anti-sway bar for the sail, some self-correcting constructive feed back loop for either the sail staying on the string or self centring too the vortex for detached operation. Flaps and very fine polyethylene string(fabber)/wire(engineer)/lines(kites)/sheets(nautical). If you get it too work it'll be beautiful like a ship in a bottle, save that it's a ship that sails on a bottle instead. :) Good luck.
This exact system was used to create the chapparal concept car from Chevrolet. It unfortunately was never used. I saw these videos years ago. It uses a high power laser to concentrate heat in a ring, creating hot air that expands and pushes against the cone, pushing the cone up and the air blast down. Worth looking up.
I LOVED the program about the laser flight. I saw it on cable when visiting family years ago, and could not find it at the library or the little online timei has available then. I need to find it again. Love these projects on this channel.
5:37 the ball stayed in the air beam shouldn't be considered a cause of coanda effect,but Bernoulli's Law. As the air flows tend to bypass the ball surface and resume the status before they reach the ball,the speed of the air flow is faster on the surface than other area,then the ball gets a push-back force on its side surfaces,which act together like a fixing ring to the ball.
I’m pretty sure the reason there was multiple rings is because the expansion chamber is similar to a 2 stroke exhaust, the shape would be creating a second shockwave inside, but since it’s closed and only has one hole to escape from, it bounces back out the end, creating a second or even third ring
I love these videos that just explore a concept. Not sure if you have any practical use planned for this or if it's just science for the sake of science, but it's fascinating.
I saw the same documentary and thought it was amazing that you could use a laser to propel a "craft". The shape of the craft focuses the laser energy to a point where plasma is created and that heat is what causes the air around it to expand and push on the bottom of the craft. That is my understanding of how it works at least :)
Super interesting that you can see vortex shedding (like off of a cylinder). But it's almost like this doesn't start until the second ring is eaten by the first one. After that they alternate up and down. Very cool
+Tom Stanton I wonder, the inside of the vortex is spinning towards the sail which will give an additional push while the outside is spinning away. If the vortex is spinning sufficiently fast the outside of the vortex could pulling the sail back and taking angular momentum away from the vortex's inner side which could otherwise be converted to linear momentum by the sail. Would a sail which conical and curved to capture just the inside be more efficient? Would this also be self-stabilizing? This would require even greater accuracy though. Perhaps even something as simple as a rougher texture applied near the center of the sail could help convert the useful part of the vortex's angular momentum in to sail velocity.
I'm familiar with the cone cannon powered by propane. They are used alongside farm crops to scare away all the damn crows out of the field. Everyone calls it a corn-popper.
add an umbrella frame that flexes outwards and hang weights to the end of the umbrella frame. now theres a method of transportation via hanging weights, and the count-acting forces of the frame and weights should hold the sail rigid. also allow you to control direction by controlling the center of gravity of the sail, when the sail is landing back down.
Tom: RE: multiple vortices: Vortices are confined to discrete shedding "packets" (see Von Karman Vortex Street), based on a number of factors, primarily related to the size and shape of the body that generates them. These, in turn, have a "shedding frequency", wherein new (secondary) vortices are automatically generated. If you increased both the velocity and duration of your stream, a continual stream of shed vortices emerge (as you demonstrated). And because they are counter-rotating relative to one another, they destroy one another. For a single POWERFUL vortex, any increase in air velocity must include a shortening of the pulse duration, followed by sufficient pause time for the subsequent vortex to move without interference to/with the prior. HTH
That octagonal one was probably the best, I suggest lengthening the sides of the device and maybe putting a thin but sturdy wire attached to the corners pointed down for stability when rising. It will add extra weight, but the stability might make up for it.
Use code TomStanton or go to curiositystream.com/TomStanton to get Curiosity Stream for only $14.99 for the whole year!
Ok
You are great
I must admit you made a very convincing and compelling publicity for Curiosity Stream.
Love the video but I'd love too see longer videos, or more videos. I'm sure it's not easy but it would be awesome to get more content from you. 🛸
What's the name of the episode of Butterfly Effect you menioned?
Your dedication to the most impractical methods of flight is impressive, as is the ingenuity you apply to the designs.
😂😂😂😂😂
It always makes me want to think of even more impractical methods.
The original didn’t look promising either. Sometimes It’s just for a bit of fun, even if all the laws tell you its not gona be good.
you're _100%_ true dude
I mean you can say they are impractical now tell he finds something that's better then we have. experimenting with these kinds of things can sometimes reveal better ways of doing things. like the people looking back at flywheels to make batteries with them. flywheels are old old but throw it into a vacuum chamber and have it use magnetic bearings to take almost all friction away and how long will it keep the energy inside it for. a long time. flywheels batteries are pretty neat.
Impressive that you worked out that nozzle design seemingly by intuition. I don't think I've ever encountered someone who found fluid dynamics intuitive.
Oh man! I thought the thumbnail was some upper body x-ray or something!!
@@markdavis7397 im also amazed. The only reason i clicked on this video is because i wanted to read the comments lol
Shamefully slinking into this comment section because i clicked for the same reason
Trust i just got done watching tons of STEM videos!
I was like, "Is this the ghost of Devo?"
I was thinking "please tell me I'm not the only one who saw boobs" 😂
Yeah
6:50 you know maybe you’re getting pressure waves reflected on the chamber walls, as in two stroke exhaust chambers. There might be some formula to calculate the resonance frequency for a given geometry. With your high speed footage you could check if the vortex rings are forming at that frequency :)
I’ve done some very light work on this in school where we tuned our intake plenum/runners in order to have the best volumetric efficiency at a certain rpm. Same idea as a two stroke exhaust. It’s actually not super complex and mainly depends on runner length
This could be a job for a sprinkler valve. They're meant for water but will dump a large volume of air from an air tank instantly. I've used them in a few projects. Great for air cannons. Basically they use their own pressure to seal the air. When you apply a voltage to the solenoid it allows a small amount of air to release the pressure which releases a much larger valve instantly.
this comment is completely accurate
That sounds similar to quick exhaust valves found in paintball guns
I'd look into an industrial QEV, quick exhaust valve. Similar in function to your sprinkler valves except better in every possible way and need no modification.
@@dontnubblemebro seconding this. I used a QEV for a potato gun when I was younger and it worked fantastically. I ordered it from McMaster Carr and it only cost me like 20 dollars!
they are barely fast enough, I think you would have to couple the sprinkler valve with a trapdoor style purge valve in order to get the optimal "waterhammer" type effect for a vortex.
That demonstration was never seen again because it involved ionic propulsion and collaterally demonstrated that it could move a much smaller projectile horizontally at speeds rivaling a bullet
This video seems like an Engineer's solution for not knowing how to vape
Good one!!!
I wonder what this would do to a tomato.
Hi integza!
@@manitoba-op4jx you've been vaping crap??
@integza. Video idea. Does laminar flow effect the efficiency of a pelton water wheel
oh my god I watched that same documentary! I can't remember exactly what they were using it for, but i thought it was something spacey, like an elevator climber or a solar sail demo, although they were getting a lot more thrust than photon pressure because of that plasma so maybe that's just what my young space-obsessed brain was thinking, not realizing it wouldn't work above the atmosphere...
Anyway awesome project! I've wanted to work with vortex rings for a while but have found very little information and your cone/funnel/bin iteration was fascinating - I'd love a "speed of ring" equation as a function of air blast strength, time, cone length, and taper, but I don't think anybody has bothered to calculate that...
Me too and I think it was a space elevator.
@@seeker1015 ah! So I’m not crazy!
Sadly, one of the inventors, Jordin Kare, passed away at a fairly young age, and couldn't continue this work.
@@AlphaPhoenixChannel No this was still in the phase where channels like discovery and the history channel were still producing things with actual scientific value and educational content and hadn't gotten infected with the reality tv viral mutagen, and the groupthink of ancient aliens or cryptid/ mythological programs caused them to devolve into some poor facsimile that was somehow thought of as entertainment. Man those were the days Modern marvels and others like it were the shit and really what i can attribute a lot of my interest in science and the natural world to.
I think it was Scientific American Frontiers with Alan Alda. The amount of electricity they needed for the laser for one test was the "enough to run a town of 1,000 homes for three days" type analogies... not very practical for any sort of real lift. Also the gyro stabilization would be lethal for anyone aboard. It had that "Flight of the Navigator" vibe though, which was cool.
I remember seeing that same laser propulsion video when I was a kid! I think what's going on is they have a pulsed laser with an optics setup that makes a wide beam that's below the energy density that will cause air breakdown, and the highly polished "UFO" aircraft focuses that beam to a density that can cause air breakdown, and the plasma pop pushes it up a little bit. No idea what kind of laser power you'd need for this, but I'd guess into a pretty substantial average watts realm on a fast pulse. If someone on here can pull off reproducing it even at garage scale I'd be impressed.
This sounds like a job for Styropyro!
collab with styropyro
Considering how long ago that was filmed, and the availability of "cheap" Chineesium lasers, it could well be possible to get the same results today with multiple lasers all firing at the same object...?
afik, they were using a multi-killowatt pulsed CO2 laser to fly that UFO. I.e. something expensive and good at killing mirrors.
Let's say the metal thingy weights 100g. That would need roughly 4.8 watts with no losses according to SO.
But it isn't that simple because levitating doesn't require any power. You can make for example magnets levitate indefinitely without any energy.
Always impressed with your inventiveness, your imagination, and your skill in reducing both to practice. All three result in steady and impressive progress.
If you want a really short, powerful burst of air, look into using a QEV (quick exhaust valve) with a solenoid-controlled pilot valve. That's what I used for the full auto pneumatic blaster on my channel. Normal solenoid valves have a very long opening/closing time. QEVs can dump entire secondary tanks in a fraction of the time.
They're popular in paintball & combat robotics for a reason. Though they require an extra valve to safely discharge the pressurised tank after usage
I used a 3/4 inch diameter QEV from McMaster Carr for a potato gun and it worked great. QEVs would be a great solution.
my favourite part in this video was the slo-mo captured when the vortex hit perfectly in the middle of the second design it looked satisfing
Recently I also play with vortex ring generator using same technology as you. I tested same valve as you, but now I moved to 2v130-15. It has much larger orifice diameter that allows larger air flow with similar on/off cycle time. That resulted with larger and faster stable rings.
You knew *exactly* what you were doing with that thumb-nail, kid. Well done.
We used a trash bin with a hole mounted on a bass speaker which was powered by a step function generator. This setup could shoot across a room. It also showed very nice results when shooting with two of these synchronized towards each other.
That's cool!
Also, with a speaker/actuator impulse device, the system parameters could be sufficiently controllable and repeatable to inform a (computer) model.
If it can be modelled, it can also be iterated towards the best performance......
And that is how the dubstep cannon was formed!!!
@@pompeymonkey3271 plus play sick beats, two words dubstep cannon?
@@connorjohnson4402 I'm now googling "dubstep canon". Yay!
The Lightcraft was invented by Dr. Leik Myrabo. It used a high power laser aimed at the bottom a spinning, ringed disk . The laser hit heated the surface to produce thrust. Also the entire plane was spinning to stabilize it in flight.
Explains the air hose
Hi, well said mate well said! im 51 and i remember that aswell! fascinated the hell out of me and you are well correct there nice one! i was just going to say that aswell! i watch all the programs like that since way befor that one aswell! take care mate and have a fantastic day!
The thumbnail made me lol. Great content Tom
Had to scroll way to far to finally find a comment about the "familiar looking" thumbnail
?
The vortices are single waves of a resonant frequency of the chamber. If you pulse the jets at half this frequency it will cause constructive interference and many times the power.
I'm an I&C engineer with lots of experience with Solenoid Valves. I'm a little surprised that you setup worked as well as it did. A larger SV would probably be a better choice. For a 2-way solenoid valve there are really only 3 variables, voltage, Cv and pressure rating. You can get a direct acting valve, or a pilot operated valve which is slower but can have a higher pressure rating.
I'm interested in seeing where you are going to take this. I always learn so much from your commitment to testing!
Giving a bump for the expert advice!
When I first saw the thumbnail I was a little surprised it wasn't censored. Very cheeky.
Making the air less turbulent before it enters the vortex creator might help with accuracy. A 3d printed part that resembles the inside of a catalytic converter might work.
We did this for a small wind tunnel we built at college by passing the air through a bunch of drinking straws packed into a pipe.
Laminar flow!
Hi Tom, yes I remember the silver saucer propulsion system quite vividly. I still have a VHS recording of that Hyper Science episode, I watched many times with my aero enthusiast cousin Marcus (Circa 2000). In fact that doco was produced by Beyond, the Aussie production house that started Myth Busters - fun fact.... The laser beam energy was concentrated to the ring and created a pulse of plasma energy that propelled the vehicle forwards. So cool right. Duby
You need to make sure the volume of the exit air "slug" needs to have a diameter to length ratio of 1:4 to create a well formed ring.. (Reynolds number critical)..
So cool that this is covered ground
Cool! Where can I learn more about this?
@@revimfadli4666 just look up ring vortex cannon gun.. hill vortexes.. hail cannons..
@@platypusrex2287 I mean optimal parameters like air volume, d/l ratio, etc
@@revimfadli4666 there are many papers on the parameters.. use the previous as search terms for papers not videos..
I do agree. Those extra rings following the first one was the most mesmerizing thing I ever saw.
Wow, what a flashback. Seen that video in childhood decades ago on tv. It had quite an impression on me, but I actually sought it was the light pressure that pushes that thing back than.
I think you need to find the right oscillation frequency to resonate the internal drafting rings into the main one.
Just like how two stroke exhausts are perfectly tuned to resonate the pressure waves, you just need to find the right size and shape of your cone to use that to your advantage.
2:41 I've heard about this. I've also heard that it's rubbish and doesn't actually affect the storm, which makes sense because no matter how powerful that box is, lightning and thunder will most certainly be stronger and they don't seem to stop the storm.
I mean the Volkswagen plants in Mexico used them for a time.
@@otm646 Yes, the Volkswagen case is quite well known -- they got into a conflict with farmers around the area who thought the hail canons had produced a drought. Hail cannons are made, sold, and used across the world (often around viniculture), despite having been tested thoroughly by scientists and having repeatedly been shown to have absolutely no effect on hail. If you know anything about physics/meteorology it becomes quickly clear that they could not work. There are always charlatans able to make money out of people's gullibility and desire to control the natural world around them.
If you are trying to protect crops from hail, wouldn't you need something ultrasonic that affects the hail particles at a high enough altitude that the change in terminal velocity of the broken up pieces has time to reduce their impact velocity? Or some highly distributed radar guided pulse laser setup. Either of which sounds more expensive than a retractable roof. Which also seems overwhelmingly expensive compared to the reward.
I was just like, "holy shit, yes, that could totally work." and it did. I love to see how you are breaking down the problem and requirements to create a hypothesis. Thanks and keep doing good stuff.
your dedication to the most impractical approach in Fluid Dynamics is respectable sir.
2:12 "The first is to use what I call a rubbish bin, because it would make a rubbish bin with such a large hole."
I don't see anyone else talking about this top-tier joke, but it seriously deserves appreciation lol. As does the rest of the video, really great stuff.
Awesome video and really nice thumbnail!
Your thumbnail choices are outstanding.
This man has improved vortex ring nozzles. This is why I like this channel. It feels like inventing
honestly speaking your troubleshooting skills are the best I've seen and it is quite motivating to see the way you go about figuring out the problem
You should use a “quick exhaust valve“ and dump it using the small valve you have. This is how they shoot air into the center of a filter of a vacuum system to clear the filter… I also watched this same show:)
Bruh. Entire PHD's could be written about all the things you just created. This is amazing.
You can make your valves close faster by using a snubber instead of your free wheeling diode.
A snubber is basically a capacitor-diode-resistor combination that "catches" the electrons and dissipates them in the resistor instead of letting them flow freely through the solenoid. Basically converting the magnetic energy into potential energy in the capacitor, instead of letting it die down naturally.
Edit:
The smaller the capacitance, the faster. But this will also increase the voltage spike. So make sure your components can handle that and maybe use an optocoupler to protect your Arduino.
That thumbnail got me in the first half... Ngl
2 circles with air vortex in the center of both.... Oh god.... I should call her....
I hope you keep moving forward with this concept. Really enjoy your videos 👍
As a kid, growing up in the UK I remember in the mid 70's a clip on a TV BBC 1 news show called "Nationwide" which showed a person demonstrating a "flying disc" which seemed to be an aluminium toroid, and the inventor was describing it as using an eletrostatic vortex of air through the center. Memories are coloured by time however and I was 14 then but from what I recall, he was using a very early "bilp blip" one channel MacGregor pulse moduladed radio control to turn the power on. He placed the disk in a nearby field, pulesd his transmitter and the disc went up and away at amazing speed. the news clip was about 5 min long and was never repeated because had no watto bring it back. It always intrigued me and I have searched for that clip on the internet time and again but never found it in any BBC archive. I have looked into the J L Naudin and the Townsen-Brown electrostatic lifter experiments but the lifter has to be extremely lightweight to take advantage of the ionization. The Clip I remember showed a bulky rivited toroid lokking like about 2-3 Kg in weight. Wish I could find it today.
Sorrry for babbling on and thanks so much for your constantly innovative and scientific analysis of of alternate propulsion systems. People like yourself are those who will lead us forwards out of the complacent aeronautical "norm" and compel us to revist the ideas of the likes of Viktor Schauberger.
If you are using pulsing, I believe you need the pulsing frequency of your air to match the natural resonance frequency of your exit cone. if you use a pressure sensor to measure the pressure at the exit of the cone with the exit blocked off, then graph the pressure vs air pulsing frequency to find the lowest frequency where that pressure is lowest(local min), then maybe use half that frequency to get max pressure at exit . At 6:30, looks like you see a resonance mode. Very cool slow mo footage!
I’m intrigued if having *another* air or combustion chamber *around* the conventional cone (potentially with a staggered initiation), it would boost the performance. Supposedly the air being entrained by the almost venturi like effect of the high speed cone air and the still surrounding air. I’m thinking have the core one go 2x, Surrounding bit go 1x. Although maybe you get vortex ring-ception!
Also using something “faster” like hydrogen-oxygen, or even full on (H-O…) fired plug *compressed* hydrogen like a proper light gas gun may make it faster!
Could also add injectors at the “throat” for some sort of fog or dye, almost like a Carburetor, to enhance visibility.
Those are my ideas for someone like you to tinker with if you beat me to it! (Will need to be CC Attribute Share Alike Though!)
(Context for the Thread Necromanc: Looking back at this after the recent Backyard Scientist bit (although it was a commercial product i guess, not his design)
(Edit: Added Context)
This video thumbnail was like
Legends will understand
dirty minded people
( . ) ( . )
Vortex is fun...
Ah.. i see you're a man of culture as well
your step by step approach to engineering problems like this has helped to to continue experimenting with ideas even tough i have failed like 6 times in a row.
Very interesting project! For someone who owns a smoke machine I'm surprised you haven't considered using a subwoofer with high enough Xmax as the vortex generator. I think it would allow for better control and tuning of the output, by modulating the frequency and amplitude. I would suggest something at least 12" like a Dayton, which are not overly expensive. Would you consider it?
Maybe one could combining the speaker as a power source with a pulse-jet style valve to quickly get air in front of it again.
Maybe have the speaker in the center with a circular duct around it with one-way valves suppling air to the "work"-side of the cone. To help resupply air, it may be necessary to "boost" pressure using some radial fans (radial is better for pressure).
Wouldn’t the “pull back” from the membrane reduce the power of any blast of air it created?
agreed dude. 1000% correct man
@@Stillbourne42 You'd probably need a controlled air inlet into the chamber to prevent that
@@MazeFrame Yea this sounds interesting and on the loudspeaker topic i was wondering about how horn design principals might help in designing the cone, i know different outcome but it reminded me of that
maybe even something like a venturi, it gets difficult adding fans and suck because turbulence is the enemy here so the smoother you can pull air in the better idk if its complicating it when its adding the driving force and the valve by the same mechanism but its interesting they do make rings themselves tho it comes down to what better outputs consistent driving force
The fast-cycling air valve could be very useful for blowing certain things with a shop compressor. Certain debris that catches in grooves or holes respond better to a quick burst than a steady stream of air. I find myself tapping the trigger or flicking the nozzle of my blow gun around, and that may do it better without all the commotion. Saves on air usage, too!
I love your unconventional methods of propulsion, it's really interesting
Easily earned my subscription. Great video! Love that you include the tries that didn't go as well and explain why you went with different designs - fantastic!
Really cool to see this. There's so little reliable info available for vortex-ring nozzle design. I would love to see more.
The most perfect thumbnail I have ever seen.
You should definitely look at the response timing of the valve - I suspect they are not all acting as simultaneously as you like
You are the first person to fully explain and actually show what curiosity stream is after hearing about it dozens of times. I’m planning on signing up. Great video!
Maybe if the sail is spinning, the gyroscopic effect can stabilise it a little?
yup. without a doubt perfect
I think with such a lightweight paper design, it would be difficult to get it spinning (especially without support), and the small amount of angular momentum would quickly be dissipated by friction/air resistance if you don't increase the mass, which would be counterproductive. But I'd love to be wrong/see the potential problems fixed. Interesting idea
"Instead of using a 2d printer. I should use a 3d program to convert my 3d model into a 3d template to print with a 3d printer to trace it with a pen and cut it with scissors."
Tom Stanton's brain coming up with modern solutions to ancient problems.
Awesome, I've seen the laser projectile video as well when I was a kid and I have been searching for the footage for years. What were the sources for you, how did you find it back? Where can I find more about this laser-propelled, or should I say propulsed craft? It was so good to see it again.
I’m honestly not into science like this but every video Tom makes I watch thoroughly because he keeps me engaged and informed
I love how he 3D-prints plastic templates just to draw lines on a piece of paper, as if there was no device that can print directly on paper
I can’t speak for Tom but the only printer I own is of the 3D variety
Exactly. He should 3d print a cnc machine that can hold a sharpie and draw on paper instead.
this device you just saw is a atmospheric espansion based flying device. it works on the principle that most atmospheric gasses expand when they get hot.
something like that is actually rather easy to replicate using a old camera flasher and some kind of gong. you can flash it at it and it will generate heat on the surface acting like a small explosion making it start to move and make sound.
that flying design is basically the same but it uses a light thing, a much more powerful light which is focussed at generating more heat(IR).
the device also has a special geometry to make sure the air gets pushed out and in with different direction balances meaning once the light pulses and the air heats up most air movement force is aimed downward, and once the new cold air flows it it takes more from the surrounding to minimize the downward force.
luckily while a good geometry helps due to inertia of mass the particles send out will want to follow their direction once the air heats up and they have their movement. but the barely moving particles in the air will just be pulled in based on how close they are to the center making it pull from all sides and so not affect the thrust tom much. the top is also optimized against wind resistance since on impact it needs to accelerate fast for a short duration and for stability ofcource.
btw. heating air a lot generates plasma, it might also be optimized specifically to focus on generating static charge for plasma instead of heat. but generating the heat and making that generate the plasma is much simpeler
These hailstorm canons dont work in breaking un hailstorms as far as i know. I think there are some science youtubers that have made some videos on it.
Dont know about science youtubers but i know it was in an episode of citation needed.
@@by0669 that was probably it.
Waking up on a Saturday morning, seeing that there is a new Tom Stanton video, knowing it's going to be good.
What a brilliant nozzle design!
Awesome slow-mo footage as well!
I remember when I first saw that laser propelled spinning top that I got really wound up about the fact that these people were really selling this idea as a viable future way of space travel - suggesting to put people into a device that spins at insane revs, being hit by thousands of pulses from a terawatt laser system, then not thinking about that the thing doesn't work without an atmosphere...
It was an interesting experiment for sure, just like Tom's one, but no more than that.
Always very good, thank you.
FWVLIW: You can propel 'craft' with ground lasers in broadly one of two ways:
1) With the photons themselves. At it's most basic you fire a laser at a sail. The photons hit the sail, and in the process transfer a little momentum to the 'craft'. There's more going on, and there are ways to improve efficiency over just using a reflective material.
2) As per the illustration. The 'craft' has a reflector designed to focus the laser light just behind it. The focussed laser light drastically heats the air just behind and the expansion of the gas (now likely plasma) provides the thrust.
The devil is of course in the detail. Pros and cons:
1) Great for use in space as you can propel your 'craft' at relativistic speeds over huge distances, and you don't need to carry fuel. But as you don't get a lot of momentum transfer from photons you're going to be accelerating slowly and you want a really, a-hem, light 'craft'.
2) You get more thrust for the energy you put in which is good for acceleration and load carrying, but you need a propellent. Within the atmosphere that's no issue, but in space you'll have to carry that along with trying to manage coordinating it's use with a laser firing at you.
I hope that was of interest to someone.
That thumbnail… neurons activated
I always love watching your awesome projects! Always inspires me.
I remember hearing about that kind of laser propulsion with Chevrolet's Chaparral 2X VGT concept car which used this technology to propel itself across the ground, crazy stuff which obviously excited my little brain!
Tom, maybe try absorbing the vortex from outside to inside of the paper parachute. Hopefully the vortex can rotate along the paper surface and be redirected and exited from the centrum of the paper parachute back into the cannons direction. Like in very efficient pelton wheel generators, where the water is redirected into the opposite direction resulting in more efficiency rather than just stopping the water/air particle.
Dandelions "fly" by creating and hanging on to a vortex ring. Their filaments being spread out radially from a point means that there's more drag in the center, which causes a vortex ring on top of the dandelion. Im not exactly sure how this helps the dandelion fly but I think it may be that the lowest pressure area is sitting on top of dandelion, pulling it upward. Maybe these dandelions are onto something.
thought this sounded interesting and it was thanks for mentioning it !!
Great video. On the next round, consider adding an adjustable time delay circuit to the valve switches to be able to tune the switches so the valves fire at the same time. This could eliminate the multiple rings and strengthen the vortex.
Very good and interesting video. Just the hailcannons mentioned at the start are actually a hoax. But they´re still fun ;)
The Light Craft design (the original NASA experiment), was intended to be scaled up (and was).
However, I think the Light Craft project (given its low budget) was actual a tiny part of a much larger picture (project).
I'm sure the people researching the Light Craft didn't know that. They, were thinking "launch craft into space".
However, the actual funders may have been thinking something completely different for this tech.
Notice the Light Crafts shape, looks similar to an intake spike for certain high speed aircraft.
Plasma tech, has all sorts of cool uses I'm betting :)
Why is no one talking about the thumbnail.
They are, but the direct comments might be getting removed. So only comments that indirectly refer to it are staying.
his face at the end is hilarious 😆😅🤣
yoo that thumbnail kinda sus😳
That was a stroke of genius coming up with that nozzle design!
Absolutely love your videos keep doing the great work
A vortex ring is more like a propagation of energy than a flow. It's basically a circular wave in the air. In water, a wave has a circular motion where the the water near the surface flows forward and the water near the bottom flows backwards. If the wave hasn’t broken, the water doesn’t have any real displacement over time. The vortex ring is similar to this where the air in the middle moves forward while the air around the outside is pulled back. The fog stays with the ring because it effectively rides the wave with all the air towards the center of the ring. This means the ring actually contains fairly little energy since it is such an efficient motion. Also, it would be interesting to try to make something that rides the wave in the center of the ring rather than have all the energy dissipated into a sail.
ayyy
How did you comment 49 minutes ago
This guy is a doctor who
@@RobertSmith-eq6rl he's not even a sponsor... i think...
@@RobertSmith-eq6rl pateron
So, you'll need a anti-sway bar for the sail, some self-correcting constructive feed back loop for either the sail staying on the string or self centring too the vortex for detached operation. Flaps and very fine polyethylene string(fabber)/wire(engineer)/lines(kites)/sheets(nautical). If you get it too work it'll be beautiful like a ship in a bottle, save that it's a ship that sails on a bottle instead. :) Good luck.
So basically a waste of 11:00 minutes of my life. 👎👎
2:11 The dad joke on point there sir!
This exact system was used to create the chapparal concept car from Chevrolet. It unfortunately was never used. I saw these videos years ago. It uses a high power laser to concentrate heat in a ring, creating hot air that expands and pushes against the cone, pushing the cone up and the air blast down. Worth looking up.
I LOVED the program about the laser flight. I saw it on cable when visiting family years ago, and could not find it at the library or the little online timei has available then. I need to find it again.
Love these projects on this channel.
Laser propulsion riding on a shockwave.
There are 2 types of people when they see the thumbnail:
1: woah that looks like a jellyfish
2: 🤨
5:37 the ball stayed in the air beam shouldn't be considered a cause of coanda effect,but Bernoulli's Law. As the air flows tend to bypass the ball surface and resume the status before they reach the ball,the speed of the air flow is faster on the surface than other area,then the ball gets a push-back force on its side surfaces,which act together like a fixing ring to the ball.
I’m pretty sure the reason there was multiple rings is because the expansion chamber is similar to a 2 stroke exhaust, the shape would be creating a second shockwave inside, but since it’s closed and only has one hole to escape from, it bounces back out the end, creating a second or even third ring
Ooh I didn't know I made a guest appearance on your channel, that's fun!
I love these videos that just explore a concept. Not sure if you have any practical use planned for this or if it's just science for the sake of science, but it's fascinating.
Never really thought about the affects of trying to fire multiple rapid vortex rings. Really enjoy your videos and experiments.
I saw the same documentary and thought it was amazing that you could use a laser to propel a "craft". The shape of the craft focuses the laser energy to a point where plasma is created and that heat is what causes the air around it to expand and push on the bottom of the craft. That is my understanding of how it works at least :)
Super interesting that you can see vortex shedding (like off of a cylinder). But it's almost like this doesn't start until the second ring is eaten by the first one. After that they alternate up and down. Very cool
+Tom Stanton
I wonder, the inside of the vortex is spinning towards the sail which will give an additional push while the outside is spinning away. If the vortex is spinning sufficiently fast the outside of the vortex could pulling the sail back and taking angular momentum away from the vortex's inner side which could otherwise be converted to linear momentum by the sail.
Would a sail which conical and curved to capture just the inside be more efficient? Would this also be self-stabilizing? This would require even greater accuracy though.
Perhaps even something as simple as a rougher texture applied near the center of the sail could help convert the useful part of the vortex's angular momentum in to sail velocity.
0:57 laminar flow is closer to lasers than that torus. A laser is a parallel "flow" of light
I'm familiar with the cone cannon powered by propane. They are used alongside farm crops to scare away all the damn crows out of the field. Everyone calls it a corn-popper.
add an umbrella frame that flexes outwards and hang weights to the end of the umbrella frame. now theres a method of transportation via hanging weights, and the count-acting forces of the frame and weights should hold the sail rigid. also allow you to control direction by controlling the center of gravity of the sail, when the sail is landing back down.
Fun fact, this shape is present on the album cover of Boston's 1976 album, "Boston" which happens to have a song called "Smoking."
DUDE that design was awesome for the vortex valve, def. gonna go design one of my own now!
Tom: RE: multiple vortices: Vortices are confined to discrete shedding "packets" (see Von Karman Vortex Street), based on a number of factors, primarily related to the size and shape of the body that generates them. These, in turn, have a "shedding frequency", wherein new (secondary) vortices are automatically generated. If you increased both the velocity and duration of your stream, a continual stream of shed vortices emerge (as you demonstrated). And because they are counter-rotating relative to one another, they destroy one another. For a single POWERFUL vortex, any increase in air velocity must include a shortening of the pulse duration, followed by sufficient pause time for the subsequent vortex to move without interference to/with the prior. HTH
That reasoning about the shape of the cone though, wow that's some next level intuition!
That octagonal one was probably the best, I suggest lengthening the sides of the device and maybe putting a thin but sturdy wire attached to the corners pointed down for stability when rising. It will add extra weight, but the stability might make up for it.
Of all the times I’ve seen curiosity stream advertised, this video right here is the one that finally got me to get it. Well done 👍