Australia's Science Forum

Has anyone ever made a Ruben's tube? I have been asked to make one for our expo day. I've looked at instructions on the web but just wondering if anyone has first hand advice to give?

Kathryn

I dunno, but having just done a search for it, I want one!

I'm going to make one, just not sure when I'll have the time

I had my husband make one last year for Science Week. Worked really well. Kids of all ages loved it.

Ev

His notes-About 40mm diameter aluminium tube, but not important. Don't use pvc pipe! 1.5mm holes 10mm apart. I made a Delrin end plug with a gas hose fitting for one end. Other end has a latex membrane stretched over it to allow vibrations to pass through. Can fit a funnel to the open end to allow a bigger membrane to be fitted. Heaps of videos on youtube.

We had a discussion on this at our last staff meeting, but decided that the risk assessment outweighed actually making and using it.
I would be interested to hear how you get on with it.

I have a teacher here that find the most "interesting" things on youtube and then comes and puts in orders for things she has seen and then wants to do in class. I used to get most of it for her, but after the last effort which involved quite a bit of hydrogen peroxide which ended up being a huge fail, I now say to her that she has to try it first and make sure it actually works before ordering enough for class. She's blowing out the budget

Having Googled it, I reckon a you tube video is probably a safer option! But not as exciting as 'the real thing' on an expo day... Let us know how you get on if you end up doing it!

I am still in the process of planning this - it has taken awhile to source (scrounge) a piece of pipe. The piece I have is 40mm dia which I thought was too small going by my googled instructions, but it sounds as though you had success with this size Ev? One of the teachers saw this at Questacon during the holidays. He considers that is is not too risky as they use it there with young children sitting very close. We will use it outside to start off with (if I can actually get it to work) and of course have people standing well back.

kathryn