youtuber mark rover has a cool video
where he makes a giant fluid sand bed
out of a hot tub in the beginning of
that video he also shows his small
prototype sand bed and we’re gonna be
showing you step-by-step how you can
build one of those for yourself
if you are the kind of person who likes
watching cool builds and engineering on
YouTube then you probably know who Mark
Rover is and you’ve probably seen his
video where he took a hot tub filled it
with sand rain air through it and made
just a fluid sand bed that you could lie
down inside it was very cool but he
started out the video showing a smaller
version that he built as a
proof-of-concept I reached out to Mark
and he said it would be cool if I did a
video showing you step-by-step how to
build one of those smaller fluid sand
beds for yourself here’s the basic plan
we’re gonna set up a series of tubes and
corners that fit inside a box and
pressurize with air the piping will be
full of very small holes that run air
into the sand turning it into a fluid
here are the parts that we’re going to
need to build this we have our 1/2 inch
pipe right here we have about 15 feet of
it we won’t use all of that but it’s a
good amount to start with we have 4 half
inch elbow pieces we have 8 half-inch
tea pieces that are smooth in all three
ports and we have 1/2 inch tea piece
that’s threaded in the center port and
just a push fit on the sides we’ve got a
little bit of metal hardware as well
this is a bushing that goes from 1/2
inch to 1 quarter inch on the inside a
connector that’s 1/4 inch on both sides
a small quarter inch ball valve and a
1/4 inch fitting that attaches to our
air compressor we also have this plastic
tub that I bought at Home Depot for
about 6 bucks this size tub ends up
working out really well and the bottom
inside measurements are about eighteen
and a half by 12 inches and that would
be 47 centimeters by 30 and 1/2
centimeters now we need to cut several
pieces out of our 1/2 inch pipe first
we’ve 5 pieces that are 16 and 1/4
inches long if you want to get really
precise that’s about 41 and 1/4
centimeters you don’t have to use one of
these pipe cutters for this but it
really is nice with those 5 pieces cut
the next two pieces are two that are 7
inches long it’s just under 18
centimeters finally we want 10 pieces
that are 1 and 3/4 of an inch long which
is about 4 and 1/2 centimeters while he
was coming up with the design mark did a
lot of trial and error and he found that
the way
to get the best airflow through the
pipes was that each of these long pieces
which will be going across our box will
have a series of small holes running
along the bottom there will be pairs of
holes at 90 degree angles apart from
each other and spaced out about every
two and a half centimeters all the way
down the pipe to get the lines of where
I’m going to drill the holes I’ve
marched two spots on the end of the pipe
that are about ninety degrees apart from
each other and I’m now going to line
these up just on the table and trace a
line down the whole pipe we’ve got our
lines drawn our pipes and now we need to
mark out the spacing for where we’ll
drill all of the holes every two and a
half centimeters is the goal we’ve got
80 marks on the pipe so we need to drill
each of them on both sides so that is
160 holes that we need to drill into
these pipes for that we are going to be
using a drill press and a 1 millimeter
drill bit it’s a very small drill bit
and it helps prevent any of the sand
getting up through the hole and ending
all right we’ve got all five pipes
drilled out we block one end and blow on
the other side we can feel all of those
holes just pump an air out now we have
those and it’s time to start connecting
all of our pipes together I’m gonna put
together all of one side and all of the
other side and then I’ll go about gluing
all of the pieces in between making
stuff out of PVC guys my album drops
next month it’s gonna be so good
now this side can be a little bit tricky
because we kind of need to push all of
them on at the same time but I think we
so now we’ve got this lattice with
hundreds of holes along the bottom that
we’ll be spraying our air out there is
another modification I do want to make
we’re going to take that same drill bit
and add a few more holes through all of
the supporting structure so that all of
the air gets blown all the way to the
sides of the container we don’t just
have it in the middle our air is going
to enter into this through these two tea
pieces and you can see that this mostly
fits down in there but it’s just a
little bit too wide and that’s
intentional because we’re gonna drill
two holes in the bottom and fit it in
through those holes this one and 1/8
inch Spade bit we’re using is just
barely larger than the pipes are trying
to fit through the hole so it should be
pretty snug if it cuts a nice clean hole
we are cutting onto sort of a curved
edge so there’s a very real possibility
that it won’t be perfectly smooth all
right that fits it’s pretty snug holds
itself in place there is some gap around
that and we’ll fill and plug that up
that’s working takes a little bit of
effort squishing it down forcing into
place but once we get it down in there
it fits quite snug you can see it’s just
right up against all the edges of the
tub which is just what we want a little
bit of space down below that’ll help the
air flow up through it better now let’s
take some silicone caulking mix it with
a little bit of water and then just
press that around these seals it will
basically be proto putty although we
won’t add the cornstarch and it should
just keep a nice tight seal around there
there’s not going to be pressure pushing
out on these so it doesn’t have to be a
high pressure seal that’s just to keep
any of the sand from running out those
holes well it’s nice and fluid with our
box
glued in place it’s now time to add the
rest of the hardware we’re gonna use our
other two small pieces to connect to
more elbows those elbows will connect to
our seven inch pieces and that will
connect to our tee with the threaded
spot our tee with a threaded spot will
have the bushing the connector the
quarter-inch ball valve and finally the
piece that connects to the air
compressor
now we’re going to turn the compressor
on and while that’s charging up we’re
gonna load in the first type of sand
we’ve got four different types of sand
that we’re gonna try out to see which
ones work well with this and see which
ones don’t
first up is play sands this is just your
normal playground stuff it’s not super
consistent there’s a lot of size
variation with it all we have to do to
add pressure is open the valve and we
actually have control if we just open it
a little bit we only have a little bit
of air getting through if we open it a
we’re how little it works in the middle
so the playground sand works a little
bit it’s very very dense while it’s just
sitting in there without any air flowing
through it you can’t really pass your
hand through it very easily unless
you’re just like digging down in so
playground stands not so good it’s very
uneven and even the finest grains of the
sand aren’t that fine compared to some
other types so playground sand I don’t
know I’d give this like a C grade really
not that great let’s move on to the next
kind next up we have this quartz mineral
filler and this is usually designed for
just mixing into cement to make concrete
it’s a fairly coarse grain so I have my
doubts that this stuff is gonna work
very well but I haven’t actually tried
all the way open and nothing and I will
fill it back up into the bag so now we
have what isn’t actually sand this is
actually a glass bead material it’s used
for sandblasting Marc in his video used
glass bead – I don’t know if we’re using
the exact same grain but it is a very
small very fine and fairly uniform grain
which is really what you want to learn
these eggs ooh that was a lot of
bubbling and I barely had this open whoa
that is crazy already
so even when it’s closed this stuff is
fine grain enough that I I can move it
and kind of swirl it pretty easily but
it does stop my hands doesn’t go
anywhere and opening it just a little
bit I can now just push my hand right
down through that it’s open it more
really get a bubbling look at that it’s
beautiful this is a cool way of
illustrating a concept that when you’re
in a boat and you’re in the ocean if you
ever see water that’s bubbling you’re
supposed to avoid it a boat floats on
the water because the boat plus the air
in it has a lower average density than
the water underneath it however water
with air bubbling up through it has a
lower average density than regular water
and you can hit a critical point where
your boat even with nothing wrong with
it can just sink right down into the
water air mixture if you think of this
sand as water and the air as air you can
get something similar happening these
pieces of plastic they float on top of
the sand however once there’s air
floating through the density of the sand
goes down and these pieces of plastic
[Music]
random fact it’s been estimated that
there are approximately seven
quintillion five hundred quadrillion
grains of sand on all of the beaches in
the world
that’s a 75 with 17 zeros after it
all right let’s see if our colored sand
works yeah I’m just gonna turn it off
for you
that’s already starting to mix so much
all right I’m gonna turn it on it’s
gonna get fluid and I’m just gonna put
my hand through it and it’s just gonna
the fluid sand bed is not that hard to
build it doesn’t take that long and it
doesn’t cost that much I think by far
your biggest expense is going to be if
you want to get the really good sand
that’s the superfine glass beads that
are used for sandblasting that bag did
cost me 30 35 bucks but it works by far
the best the thank you again to mark
Rober for his design and saying it’s
cool if we make a video showing how to
build the small one if you guys have not
seen his video where he turns a hot tub
into one of these things you got to
check it out he’s like floating in it
there’s like six people in it at once it
is super cool I also thought it was
super funny watching the up-close
slo-mo of the sand erupting into being a
fluid it really looks kind of like a
landscape that you’re seeing from a
drone shot above but we just took a
camera and like put it down in the sand
practically it looks really fun but it
just starts moving a little bit the sand
is really light reflective so you see
like little points of light starting to
appear and then the whole landscape just
starts just like that I hope to see some
of you build this if you do tag us on
Instagram or Twitter or wherever you
like to post the photos and we’ll check
it out guys the fun does not end here
there’s more for you to see that box of
the top will take you directly to our
last video and you should check that one
out the other box shows you what YouTube
thinks you should be watching next and
if you aren’t a subscriber yet to our
channel hit this bomb to get in the club
so you never miss out on the fun don’t
forget to ring that Bell and we will see you in the next one back to you then
where he makes a giant fluid sand bed
out of a hot tub in the beginning of
that video he also shows his small
prototype sand bed and we’re gonna be
showing you step-by-step how you can
build one of those for yourself
if you are the kind of person who likes
watching cool builds and engineering on
YouTube then you probably know who Mark
Rover is and you’ve probably seen his
video where he took a hot tub filled it
with sand rain air through it and made
just a fluid sand bed that you could lie
down inside it was very cool but he
started out the video showing a smaller
version that he built as a
proof-of-concept I reached out to Mark
and he said it would be cool if I did a
video showing you step-by-step how to
build one of those smaller fluid sand
beds for yourself here’s the basic plan
we’re gonna set up a series of tubes and
corners that fit inside a box and
pressurize with air the piping will be
full of very small holes that run air
into the sand turning it into a fluid
here are the parts that we’re going to
need to build this we have our 1/2 inch
pipe right here we have about 15 feet of
it we won’t use all of that but it’s a
good amount to start with we have 4 half
inch elbow pieces we have 8 half-inch
tea pieces that are smooth in all three
ports and we have 1/2 inch tea piece
that’s threaded in the center port and
just a push fit on the sides we’ve got a
little bit of metal hardware as well
this is a bushing that goes from 1/2
inch to 1 quarter inch on the inside a
connector that’s 1/4 inch on both sides
a small quarter inch ball valve and a
1/4 inch fitting that attaches to our
air compressor we also have this plastic
tub that I bought at Home Depot for
about 6 bucks this size tub ends up
working out really well and the bottom
inside measurements are about eighteen
and a half by 12 inches and that would
be 47 centimeters by 30 and 1/2
centimeters now we need to cut several
pieces out of our 1/2 inch pipe first
we’ve 5 pieces that are 16 and 1/4
inches long if you want to get really
precise that’s about 41 and 1/4
centimeters you don’t have to use one of
these pipe cutters for this but it
really is nice with those 5 pieces cut
the next two pieces are two that are 7
inches long it’s just under 18
centimeters finally we want 10 pieces
that are 1 and 3/4 of an inch long which
is about 4 and 1/2 centimeters while he
was coming up with the design mark did a
lot of trial and error and he found that
the way
to get the best airflow through the
pipes was that each of these long pieces
which will be going across our box will
have a series of small holes running
along the bottom there will be pairs of
holes at 90 degree angles apart from
each other and spaced out about every
two and a half centimeters all the way
down the pipe to get the lines of where
I’m going to drill the holes I’ve
marched two spots on the end of the pipe
that are about ninety degrees apart from
each other and I’m now going to line
these up just on the table and trace a
line down the whole pipe we’ve got our
lines drawn our pipes and now we need to
mark out the spacing for where we’ll
drill all of the holes every two and a
half centimeters is the goal we’ve got
80 marks on the pipe so we need to drill
each of them on both sides so that is
160 holes that we need to drill into
these pipes for that we are going to be
using a drill press and a 1 millimeter
drill bit it’s a very small drill bit
and it helps prevent any of the sand
getting up through the hole and ending
all right we’ve got all five pipes
drilled out we block one end and blow on
the other side we can feel all of those
holes just pump an air out now we have
those and it’s time to start connecting
all of our pipes together I’m gonna put
together all of one side and all of the
other side and then I’ll go about gluing
all of the pieces in between making
stuff out of PVC guys my album drops
next month it’s gonna be so good
now this side can be a little bit tricky
because we kind of need to push all of
them on at the same time but I think we
so now we’ve got this lattice with
hundreds of holes along the bottom that
we’ll be spraying our air out there is
another modification I do want to make
we’re going to take that same drill bit
and add a few more holes through all of
the supporting structure so that all of
the air gets blown all the way to the
sides of the container we don’t just
have it in the middle our air is going
to enter into this through these two tea
pieces and you can see that this mostly
fits down in there but it’s just a
little bit too wide and that’s
intentional because we’re gonna drill
two holes in the bottom and fit it in
through those holes this one and 1/8
inch Spade bit we’re using is just
barely larger than the pipes are trying
to fit through the hole so it should be
pretty snug if it cuts a nice clean hole
we are cutting onto sort of a curved
edge so there’s a very real possibility
that it won’t be perfectly smooth all
right that fits it’s pretty snug holds
itself in place there is some gap around
that and we’ll fill and plug that up
that’s working takes a little bit of
effort squishing it down forcing into
place but once we get it down in there
it fits quite snug you can see it’s just
right up against all the edges of the
tub which is just what we want a little
bit of space down below that’ll help the
air flow up through it better now let’s
take some silicone caulking mix it with
a little bit of water and then just
press that around these seals it will
basically be proto putty although we
won’t add the cornstarch and it should
just keep a nice tight seal around there
there’s not going to be pressure pushing
out on these so it doesn’t have to be a
high pressure seal that’s just to keep
any of the sand from running out those
holes well it’s nice and fluid with our
box
glued in place it’s now time to add the
rest of the hardware we’re gonna use our
other two small pieces to connect to
more elbows those elbows will connect to
our seven inch pieces and that will
connect to our tee with the threaded
spot our tee with a threaded spot will
have the bushing the connector the
quarter-inch ball valve and finally the
piece that connects to the air
compressor
now we’re going to turn the compressor
on and while that’s charging up we’re
gonna load in the first type of sand
we’ve got four different types of sand
that we’re gonna try out to see which
ones work well with this and see which
ones don’t
first up is play sands this is just your
normal playground stuff it’s not super
consistent there’s a lot of size
variation with it all we have to do to
add pressure is open the valve and we
actually have control if we just open it
a little bit we only have a little bit
of air getting through if we open it a
we’re how little it works in the middle
so the playground sand works a little
bit it’s very very dense while it’s just
sitting in there without any air flowing
through it you can’t really pass your
hand through it very easily unless
you’re just like digging down in so
playground stands not so good it’s very
uneven and even the finest grains of the
sand aren’t that fine compared to some
other types so playground sand I don’t
know I’d give this like a C grade really
not that great let’s move on to the next
kind next up we have this quartz mineral
filler and this is usually designed for
just mixing into cement to make concrete
it’s a fairly coarse grain so I have my
doubts that this stuff is gonna work
very well but I haven’t actually tried
all the way open and nothing and I will
fill it back up into the bag so now we
have what isn’t actually sand this is
actually a glass bead material it’s used
for sandblasting Marc in his video used
glass bead – I don’t know if we’re using
the exact same grain but it is a very
small very fine and fairly uniform grain
which is really what you want to learn
these eggs ooh that was a lot of
bubbling and I barely had this open whoa
that is crazy already
so even when it’s closed this stuff is
fine grain enough that I I can move it
and kind of swirl it pretty easily but
it does stop my hands doesn’t go
anywhere and opening it just a little
bit I can now just push my hand right
down through that it’s open it more
really get a bubbling look at that it’s
beautiful this is a cool way of
illustrating a concept that when you’re
in a boat and you’re in the ocean if you
ever see water that’s bubbling you’re
supposed to avoid it a boat floats on
the water because the boat plus the air
in it has a lower average density than
the water underneath it however water
with air bubbling up through it has a
lower average density than regular water
and you can hit a critical point where
your boat even with nothing wrong with
it can just sink right down into the
water air mixture if you think of this
sand as water and the air as air you can
get something similar happening these
pieces of plastic they float on top of
the sand however once there’s air
floating through the density of the sand
goes down and these pieces of plastic
[Music]
random fact it’s been estimated that
there are approximately seven
quintillion five hundred quadrillion
grains of sand on all of the beaches in
the world
that’s a 75 with 17 zeros after it
all right let’s see if our colored sand
works yeah I’m just gonna turn it off
for you
that’s already starting to mix so much
all right I’m gonna turn it on it’s
gonna get fluid and I’m just gonna put
my hand through it and it’s just gonna
the fluid sand bed is not that hard to
build it doesn’t take that long and it
doesn’t cost that much I think by far
your biggest expense is going to be if
you want to get the really good sand
that’s the superfine glass beads that
are used for sandblasting that bag did
cost me 30 35 bucks but it works by far
the best the thank you again to mark
Rober for his design and saying it’s
cool if we make a video showing how to
build the small one if you guys have not
seen his video where he turns a hot tub
into one of these things you got to
check it out he’s like floating in it
there’s like six people in it at once it
is super cool I also thought it was
super funny watching the up-close
slo-mo of the sand erupting into being a
fluid it really looks kind of like a
landscape that you’re seeing from a
drone shot above but we just took a
camera and like put it down in the sand
practically it looks really fun but it
just starts moving a little bit the sand
is really light reflective so you see
like little points of light starting to
appear and then the whole landscape just
starts just like that I hope to see some
of you build this if you do tag us on
Instagram or Twitter or wherever you
like to post the photos and we’ll check
it out guys the fun does not end here
there’s more for you to see that box of
the top will take you directly to our
last video and you should check that one
out the other box shows you what YouTube
thinks you should be watching next and
if you aren’t a subscriber yet to our
channel hit this bomb to get in the club
so you never miss out on the fun don’t
forget to ring that Bell and we will see you in the next one back to you then
Please follow and like us: