The Soap Boat

prusaprinters

<p>want to play with surface tension? and maybe even understand how it works? then start with playing around with this toy.</p><p>The boat is printed in spiral vase mode to keep the weight down, so we get more displacement from the surface tension. the boat can be printed in any non soluble material so just find a cool color.&nbsp;</p><p>when the boat is printed, put some water in a big bucket or the bottom of a bathtub, there is no reason to fill it up as the boat does not require much depth, and the water will need replacement each time. take some dish wash soap and use a finger to apply some on the inside surface of the ring at the back of the boat as marked by red in the picture.</p><figure class="image image_resized" style="width:41.99%;"><img src="https://media.prusaprinters.org/media/prints/68667/rich_content/122f8f6d-f7e9-47b9-95a7-bba62b8f957c/20200910_190935.jpg#%7B%22uuid%22%3A%22d77c1280-90eb-4a4c-98ef-731fa9e4566a%22%2C%22w%22%3A2448%2C%22h%22%3A1640%7D"></figure><p>once the soap is in place, you can place the boat in the water, and watch it take off!!</p><p>this is a product of the dish wash soap braking the surface tension in the water inside the ring of the boat, as a break of the surface tensions will result in the water moving away from that point, the boat will be propelled by the destruction of surface tension.</p><p>this can unfortunately only be done once in a bucket of water, since the surface tension in the entire bucket will be broken due to the soap, the water will need to be exchanged.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p><strong>Good luck and Happy Printing!!</strong></p>