Building The SUPERSONIC BASEBALL Cannon - Behind the Scenes - Smarter Every Day

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- Five, four, three, two, one. [canon firing] Hey, it's me Destin, Welcome to the second channel here on Smarter Every Day. This is the Mark One Supersonic Baseball Cannon, It is beautiful and I love it. [Destin giggles] So this is something that we built over a long period of time, but it's been in my brain forever. The whole idea of a push rod going all the way through and popping the cork on the back of the barrel. That's a design that I've wanted to see built forever. So anyway long story short, this video that you're about to watch is a one hour long video that gives you a little bit of insight into how this thing was built, what all we did, our thinking along the way, things we discovered, things we learned, long story short, this is the deep dive. If you wanna see this kind of stuff, it's really cool. But if you're just into seeing the baseball go supersonic and hit that plate back there, you're gonna wanna watch the first channel video. Anyway, let me go show you what happened when it hit. It's pretty rad. So the ball just goes away, it's pretty impressive. On this backside, I think that one's beautiful right there 'cause you can see the seams. A secondary goal of the Mark One Supersonic Baseball Cannon is to gain independence through Patreon and the way I hope to do that, and got my wife to agree to the plan, is to send out baseballs with a Smarter Every Day logo to literally everyone who signs up on Patreon. Also the Rocket City Trash Pandas are involved. They helped me get the baseballs. I'm a big fan of the Trash Pandas, and I thought you might like that logo on there. So anyway, if you're interested in supporting Smarter Every Day on Patreon, I wanna be able to just do things like this because it's in my brain and I don't wanna have to go out and try to find a sponsor and stuff like that. And so the idea is independence, that's pretty much it. So anyway, long story short, if you would like to become a patron of Smarter Every Day, I would greatly appreciate that. And I will send you this baseball. I've signed a lot of them, but I haven't signed all of them. So some of them will go out in the unsigned condition. Long story short, thank you so much for anyone who even considers doing this, I would now like to share with you the hour long super cut of building the Mark One Supersonic Baseball Cannon. Let's go get smarter every day. [upbeat music] - We might make them a little thicker if we go aluminum. - But the most important thing is that we put this on a trailer so that we can take it places and shoot supersonic baseballs and things. - We can hook you up with a- - Yeah. - I'm not worried about the trailer part. - Yeah, you're right. - No, I mean I'm serious. We need to turn this into a trailer launch system. - Okay, it's gonna be long, longer than just the deal and we ain't got into it. - Yeah. - We didn't get into what sticks out the back yet-- - (Trent) We just can get a longer trailer, man. - Is it a longer trailer? [laughs loudly] - We need to talk about that just a little bit. Now my concern is, and a question this will be a great math problem for some aspiring engineering student. How much does it take to pull, how much force is required to extract this seal from this barrel with a perfect vacuum? - (Trent) As well as pressure around that as well. Ours is literally about past that two. - (David) I've kind of come to the conclusion of pressure around the back of it won't be that big of a factor, but this will extend the piston out here to where there's no- (Destin) No, this is a soft problem. So right here, what you do is you have the pressure. So if you think about that right there, you got the circle like this. And so this is your area here. - (David) Right, it's like the retract stroke. - (Destin) Pressure is equal to force over area. So that area right there is just the diameters power square, blah, blah, blah. But the difference in pressure, you've got an absolute, huge amount of pressure if you're inside that 4,000 PSI. So if you extend that thing all the way past that outside- - If the piston is fully engaged in the barrel, if the piston is not engaged in the barrel- - (Destin) You still have the same issue. - Okay. - But- - That was my question. - It is you still have the same issue, but if you extend this thing all the way to the outside of the pressure tank and you have seals here and here. Then the difference in pressure is only atmospheric pressure to vacuum. - (Jeremy) Then you only got 15 pounds, just rounding. - Yeah, 15 pounds a square inch. - (David) It's kind of what we're sure it looks. - (Jeremy) Well yeah, 14.75 pounds. - [Crew] I don't understand a single thing you just said. - Okay, if we have a syringe like this, and we have a barrel right there. - [Crew] Okay. - (Destin) If I have a piston in that, like this, I'm trying to pull it this way. And if you think about the face of that piston right there, it's gonna look like this. Right? - Okay. - (Destin) This is the Roger pulling. So don't worry about that. But this right here, all that sees pressure on the inside of that tank. - Okay, I got you. - Yeah. - (Destin) Okay. So pressure is equal to force over area, that we're trying to solve for force. So the pressure of that on the inside of the barrel there, times the area that it sees, is gonna be the force required to pull that. (David) I got you. If we had to- - (Jeremy) To pull against the force from the pressure in the tank. - (Destin) From the pressure from the inside. If we have thousands of PSI on the inside of there, that's a really big number. (Jeremy) You're not gonna be able to pull it out. [laughs loudly] - (Destin) However, if you design it like this, you have a barrel there like that. And you have that thing running all the way through, like that. - There's no- - (Destin) There's no pressure pushing on the backside of this. - (Jeremy) Oh, oh, oh, okay. - (Destin) You with me? - (David) Yeah. - (Destin) So you have on this side, you have 14.7 PSI. And over here you have zero. [Trent] So in some way, shape or form, it's similar to this design. No? - Not at all. - (David) I only brought this up because of the little kinetic energy gizmo. - [Trent] Well, there's no. Okay, nevermind. (Destin) No. If you did this and you had seals right there somehow. So if you had a pipe, if the design was a big pipe with a pipe in the middle. And then at the end of it was open so that when you pull it, it goes [Foomp] and then all that air rush in there, that'll work. So this is a pipe, it's a pipe welded inside of a pipe. - My thinking with all this taper and what have you, whether it was a purchased tank or we machined it. If you got holes in there, it's gotta go around corners and what have you. - Okay, so imagine this. Imagine, so right now we've got a pipe and then we're pulling the plug out, [Foomp] and then all the air rushes in the end there. - Yeah. - What if we have the pipe all the way inside the tank, all the way down the tank. I don't know if this will work or not, but we had multiple plugs along the pipe and we disengage all of them at once and that lets it all run in at multiple places. Would that work? - And so we'd actually by pulling this back, we'd be increasing this volume and actually getting a slightly lower pressure here for a moment there. While we're pulling it back, we're actually increasing our vacuum a little bit. - (Destin) You'd be increasing the pressure. On the pressure side, you'd be decreasing the pressure on the vacuum side. - Yeah, that's what I'm saying. We'll be pulling more vacuum. - (Destin) Cool. So moving forward. - Threw a bunch of ideas there. - Threw a bunch of ideas? - Yeah. - (Destin) So can you take what David's got here and put it in 3D. - Yeah. And we can make drawings where it can be fabricated, machining drawings or whatever. - (Destin) Let's do that. - (David) Did we make enough decisions to go to that step though, 'cause what I'm wondering? - I think what's gonna end up happening is as soon as I started modeling, I'm gonna have a bunch of questions. 'Cause at that point I'm putting screws there, I'm putting how do you make it? And so we need them. - You're know where to reline- - There'll be a lot of decisions. Yeah. - (Destin) This is gonna be, it's gonna get real, really fast. He's very fast at design. So what's gonna happen really quick. Once we start making this thing is we're gonna have the trailer component and we're gonna have the triggering mechanism component. This is gonna be the simplest part, the barrel and the tank's gonna be pretty simple once we get going. I think the decisions that were made is we have the barrel go all the way through the tank, that's the main decision that had to be made. And then we're gonna have to come up with a mechanism on the side to extract that really quick. - (David) So we're gonna have holes in the barrel for the air to then go into? You okay with losing the aerodynamics of the- - Let's back up a step here, 'cause I thought we were doing a solid bar that we're pulling out. - (David) That's what I was thinking. - I'm thinking like round bar almost, we need a machine to make sure that the tolerance is good. - (David) Put O-ring seals on the end of that. - Exactly. We have O-ring seals and then we'll snap our O-rings on, but it'll be one solid bar, but this tank is open. So all of that air can come in and we just need to make this long enough that we can push it all the way in. And the O-ring seals are there and once she start yanking it out, then it's just a solid bar hat comes back. - (Destin) I hear what both of you are saying, but I think if we take the pipe and we go all the way back, then that's gonna keep that aligned. So we just keep enough material to keep it aligned to the barrel. - (Jeremy) Right, he's already got it. He's got a bush in here and we got here, so that's our two bearings and then this is gonna be a machine rod, It's gonna stay straight. It'll go back in the same spot every time. - (Destin) And you're you just chamfer the end here? - Yeah. And you just need a little chamfer, two O-ring grooves and then a solid bar going all the way out of the back that we've machined. So we got a good tolerance. - The air is gonna- - (Destin) So what I'm thinking, so you're saying you would just have it in there and you would weld it up with it all in place? - (David) Not necessarily weld it. - (Destin) Well, I mean, you're gonna have to weld, you're gonna have to weld these bushings at the back. - I think the back should look like the front, should be a bolt together assembly, because I think we will have to get in and out of it from- - All I'm thinking is a flat bar here, not literally, just flat bar, but you just need some kind of disc with a gasket underneath, we bolt it down and the gasket just needs to be able to stand whatever the pressure is that we're working with. - So we just put a bolt hole pattern around that. - So I've been successful in uniting you both against me. So it sounds like we're ready to go. [laughs loudly] - Now that we've decided how we're gonna do it. - Exactly, now we're know what we're doing. - We'll tell Destin what we came up with. [laughs loudly] - So, cool. Yeah, I'm Destin. - Jimmy Cross, good to meet you, man. - (Destin) Jimmy, you've been all right, dude? I'm Destin. - Donnie Cal. - (Destin) What's up, Donnie? How are you? - (Donnie) All right. - (Jeremy) That should be hot. - It's nice and warm man. - Yeah. - (Destin) That's a beefy flange, dude. - Oh yeah, it is. 300 pound flange. - (Jimmy) Hey, it's hot now. - (Destin) Yeah, yeah. - (Jimmy) You find out the hard way? - (Destin) No, I like touching hot stuff, I wasn't too smart growing up. [laughs loudly] - (Jimmy) I wouldn't either, I'm a welder. [laughs loudly] - (Destin) That's not true, welders are better than engineers, everybody knows that. All right. Man, that's a good looking weld. How many runs did you have to go around with that? Did you weld this? - (Jimmy) No, he did. - (Jeremy) He did this and this, I'm assuming? And then the other guy did this weld here, because I was watching him. - (Jimmy) I think he's got three passes probably around that. - (Destin) Three? - (Jimmy) We got one on the inside and two right here. - (Destin) So this is a port for our vacuum, right? - That's correct. We got one for gage and one for our hose. - Gage and hose? - Yeah. - (Destin) And that's just MPT thread? - Quarter inch MPT. - Okay. - (Destin) Man that's beefy, dude. That's right, here is a lot of, that's a lot of vacuum "ullage" right there, dude. - Yeah, it is. [laughs loudly] - (Destin) How much does this weigh? - I don't remember exactly, it's about 300 pounds. - (Destin) Pretty beefy. - Do you want me to see if they'll sell us some helium? If you do, tell me how much more and I'll find that out. - (Destin) Well, I at least need to know. I think we might be able to get what we need done with just nitrogen. We run the numbers and nitrogen is lighter than air. And so the lighter the gas, the higher the speed of sound is, so it'd be good to know how much helium is and if it's available. Yeah. - Find out right quick. I meant to ask him that yesterday, I forgot all about it. - (Destin) Oh, it's all good, it's all good. So this is normal steel, right? - (Jeremy) That's correct. - (Destin) And that stainless? - (Jeremy) Yeah, plain carbon steel. - (Destin) So how do you? is this stainless? - Yeah, the whole barrel here is stainless. And this part right here is plain carbon steel. And it's just a special weld for join the two together. - (Destin) To adapt the two? Really? All right. Nice. - So they made a little jig, that's good. - This is incredibly awesome. Look at you, your little tape measure on your pants. - (Jeremy) Yeah, this way I don't ever have to take it off, but I still get the job done. [laughs loudly] - (Destin) Okay. So they're getting them set in there and they're gonna put those little braces in there, right? - (Jeremy) That's correct. - (Destin) And then weld those in. - Yeah, but the set up now is all of our equipment for firing the piston, our spring, all of that will be on this side. - (Destin) Right. - And then the barrels, the reducer will be over there. - (Destin) Gotcha. - So these right here go in here and the idea is to brace that thing. The idea is to- - (Jeremy) Sort of like a temporary support while we're feeding the piston in. So it'll actually be down just a little bit until it bumps up on the barrel equipment at the very end and then it should be off of those supports. But when it's firing and moving back, super fast, it shouldn't touch those. - (Destin) And that's gonna go on the rails right here? - You got it. - (Destin) So those rails are how we're gonna adjust the sear back here. Oh, y'all talking about the X in there? - Yeah. - (Destin) That's a hard one, isn't it? - Yeah, and hard to reach up in there too. - (Destin) I thought David said he hired the best welders? [laughs loudly] - I think he just wanted to get the job. [indistinct] [laughs loudly] - I think he shot you a lot of bull. - (Destin) Jeremy drew It, you can't make what Jeremy drew, man? - (Jimmy) I guess he owes you money so he's run off. [Destin laughs] - (Destin) So what we wanna do today, David is we just wanna look at our parts and make sure we got them all here and we're gonna be set up to assemble tomorrow. That's the sear right there. Man, that's pretty, aint it? - (David) Oh yeah. - (Destin) Is that the one that came from Pennsylvania? - (David) That's your pop-it valve? - (Destin) No, that's from Grovetown, Georgia. Feel that, that's beefy, dude. - Yeah, I did, man. - (David) What is that? - (Jeremy) I set up all of these and- - (Destin) It's a sear we've created. - (Jeremy) There's our other heat treated.. - (Destin) Yeah, that's amazing. Okay. That's where the party's gonna start right there. [laughs loudly] - (David) You know that work you pop-it valve? - (Destin) Yeah, yeah. Basically. And then we've got what, so that part right there, is that stainless, Jeremy? This right here goes on the seal surface, right? - This one. This is the body, which is why it's nice and almost polished looking, they did a really good job. - (Destin) Where's the top hat, what I call the top hat? - Right here. - (Destin) Well, okay, enough top hat. This is the housing? Where does the rod run through? - So that part is wherever our pallet went. - (David) I put it right back over here. - Okay. - (Destin) Gotcha. - (Jeremy) That's this guy. - (Destin) Yeah, okay. And so yeah, it does have bearings in there. Okay. - So the inch and a half part will be here. And then the three inch body, it stops right about there when it's in the back position. - (Destin) Got it. Our goal tomorrow is to assemble that and pressure test it like Jeremy said, 'cause the main concern I have is we're gonna shove that thing up on there, that valve, we're gonna shove it on there and then we're gonna hope it holds pressure and that's gonna be the test, right? - Yeah. - (Destin) That's gonna be the real test. - Why would it not? You don't think it will seal? - (Destin) Yeah, if we have a leak back by that shaft right there, that's a possibility. So we'll see if we have a leak and then if we don't have a leak then the next step would be paint it. So yeah. - Well, the trail around needs just paint. Somebody crammed it apparently before you guys bought it. - Yeah. - Mm-hmm. - That's actually what the lady said when I bought it from her, she said she was preparing to paint it. - (Destin) Yeah. - So she just painted it with [indistinct] paint or something like that. - You know it ain't got no brakes on it? - (Destin) Correct. Correct. - Well, that's probably okay. - (Destin) I acknowledge you hate the trailer. Got it. [Destin laughs] Yeah. - It's for the record, every time I've talked to you, you've brought up hating that trailer. [laughs loudly] Absolutely, every time I've come here, like, "Man, that trailer sucks, you should use my trailer." every single time, yeah, we know it. - We putting a Cadillac, I mean, it's like something they do in Lawrence County. - Yeah. - Yeah. - You got all this money in this thing, you got $800 trailer you put it on. - Yeah. - (Destin) Hey man. Yeah, that's right. It was available. - Putting them close to the end it's not catching it at the point where it's starting to tip. - Okay. - So we'll probably, if it was right at the end, for example, and there's strain. It wouldn't help us. What we want is, as it starts to go inside and it will catch that first one and kind of ride and catch that second one and then bump up. So we kind of need it to be, but there's nothing fancy about the actual weld that holds it in place, It's just getting it into where it is and then you can reach in there. Give me a good head tack. We should be- - (Destin) So basically go in as far as you start cussing Jeremy and then come back about an inch and a half. [laughs loudly] - (Jeremy) Yeah, there you go, I like that. - (Destin) Yeah. - What we have an idea y'all what we thought we might do is get this about where it needs to be. Then reach in there and tack these two together and see if that will hold it. - Hey, welders have never cussed engineers. [laughs loudly] - (Destin) I know that's a lie. [laughs loudly] You could tack it to that little angle iron you got there and then, nevermind. I'm gonna shut up, I'm not a welder. [laughs loudly] - You can do that centerpiece. - Since the Dawn of blacksmithing in the relationship between welders and engineers has been contentious. [Destin laughs] Wouldn't you say? - Well, I have worked with some engineers that's really good. - (Destin) Yeah? - Really good. - See if I got the right measurement up here, now see if I got it centered side to side- - (Destin) If I understand correctly, that was an over the top implication that we're not good engineers. - No, no, that's not what I said at all. [laughs loudly] So that is, can you read that? - That's about right. - All right. - Can you weld that without burning me? - Oh, worse mercy. - (Destin) Here you go, Jeremy, he's about to pop it. - Yeah. [welding torch sizzles] - (David) You didn't burn me much but my little finger. - (Destin) How'd it look? - (Jeremy) You got some action. [laughs loudly] - (Destin) How'd it look on that side? - (Jeremy) I closed my eyes, so I don't know. [laughs loudly] - I'm gonna say that ought to be what we want right there. All we gotta do is just get in position, wherever you want it. - (Donnie) Do you want me to tack the other on up right here too? - All right, hold. [welding machine sizzling] - (Donnie) I didn't [inaudible] the other one. [welding machine sizzling] We couldn't see it. - (Jeremy) Probably down shaft. I just wanna time when I come back I got a couple of joints to work on. - (David) Well, all we gotta do is this right here. What about draw, do you wanna go ahead and put the rest of the stuff on this? [speakers talking over each other] [grinder grinding] [indistinct] - The one on this side looks like it's actually more of a gap. - The second one looks like it's almost touching. [welding machine sizzling] - (David) You're gonna burn the lens up on the camera. - (Jeremy) Yeah, can we? - How much does that thing weigh? - This? - Yeah. - About, I would say about 500 pounds. - Okay, and this weighs 300? Let me ask you, are the holes already under there? - (Jeremy) Not through the trailer, no. - Let me ask you this. If we have the gun lined up over the tongue, we can never hook anything up to it. Is there any value in offsetting it to one side? So that in the event that we wanted to hook something up to it, a tractor or something with a ball on it, we could do that? - You mean to move it slowly assembled? - Yeah. - Even if you get it off to one side, it would still hit your tractor, unless you angled it. Is that what you're saying, Jeremy? - Yeah. - Okay. I wonder if we made a- - Primarily just when you turning it is that is the main thing. - (Destin) An adapter to go out of the back of a class three hitch with a ball off to the side, something to think about, something to think about, that's probably for another day. Jeremy's drawings can be trusted. - That's all we had to work off of. - He didn't even check up, he didn't think that was funny at all. [laughs loudly] Some jokes just aren't funny to Jeremy. - I flipped in engineer now, trying to figure out where I missed it at. [laughs loudly] - You putting the comedian on the back burner. - Yeah, I'm trying to solve the problem. - We need some Yosemite Sam mud flaps that says, back off. [laughs loudly] What I've learned throughout the years is I engineer something and then I make it all stick together and then I hand it to the welder, then I do this, then I walk away. [laughs loudly] And I come back and it all fit, my design was great. - You know what you're supposed to do? This is what you're supposed to do, me and Jimmy used to do this all day. They give you a drawing and you look at drawing and all places it says field verification. [indistinct] - Oh, that's good. - Oh I have that on my- - That lays everything on the welder. - It's on there somewhere. [speakers talking over each other] - Field fit, I've never used it, oh look at that right there. Field fit. [laughs loudly] You see what happens. (David) This is a bronze impregnated, PTFE, just generic term, I guess wear strip. We put in two different grooves in here to help support the weight of the piston as it strokes back and forth. Usually put it right next to the seal, help ensure that the seal doesn't get damaged. - (Destin) So you're gonna put it in there? - (David) Yeah. One of them is cut to the right length already, we'll go ahead and pop it in there. That's pretty much it. So it's probably like five or six thousandths [welding machine sizzling] smaller diameter than the bore of the housing here. So the piston rides on it. - (Destin) Nice. So these seals blow up, right? - (David) Yeah, they're directional. - (Destin) Is there a port or something that puts air in the seal and it blows up like a balloon? - (David) Just this void right here where that O-ring is. - (Destin) Gotcha. - (David) So probably it doesn't actually move that much, It just tightens up. - Tightens up? - Yeah. I brought my headlight. - (Destin) It's pretty neat material there, it's just bronze? - (David) Yeah. - (Destin) Oil impregnated bronze. That's neat stuff. - (David) Yeah. Pretty cheap too. - (Destin) Commonly used in industry. - Yeah. Usually you put at least one right next to a seal. - (Destin) It takes the mechanical load. - It takes the load off the seal, keeps it running concentric. - (Destin) Neat, that's cool. [blow torch blaring] [hammer knocking steel] Taking out a lot of anger ain't you? - Yes, sir. [laughs loudly] I hate engineers! [Destin laughs] - Today is the day that we assemble the Supersonic Baseball Cannon. Here's what we've got. Got Jeremy, David working on stuff here. This is the meat and potatoes. This is the huge pipe that we're gonna use as the pressure vessel. You can see we've got these sticks in here to support stuff as it gets pushed through there. You see, we have this I-beam assembly here and these rails are going to be the base from which we build everything. So if we go over here, I'll show you the parts that these guys have got laid out. So this is the sear assembly or I guess you could think of this as the trigger. So this thing right here is what's gonna hold, it's gonna hold everything in position. And then when we release, that's when the pipe is gonna go backwards, that'll make sense later. But you can see, we have the holes here so that it can mate on those rails over there. This is the big piston that's going to cock the whole thing, you can think of it that way. We're gonna push the rod all the way through the barrel there so that it can seal on the front. So this is the pressure vessel that Jeremy designed and essentially we've got a huge flange on the back and the front. And we're gonna have this rod that goes all the way through the thing with the seal on the back and a seal on the front. The seal on the front, I'll just grab it off this table right here. This. This is going to go right up against the barrel. This is a stainless steel interface here. We have this taper. So that rods coming all the way through the pressure vessel. It's gonna go right here and push right there on that surface. So we're gonna be pushing to seal. So we have a vacuum in the barrel. We're gonna have pressure behind that and the idea is we pop that loose and let all that pressurized air run in there at the same time. So that's how we fire the baseball. The secret to getting a good vacuum on this side, as the ball goes forward, think about all that pressurized air running forward, it's gonna move forward. At some point, you're gonna start pressurizing what little air was in here. So we've got this on the front. This is a huge vacuum volume. So we're pulling a vacuum on this whole thing. This is also under a vacuum. And you can see this rail down here, this is a hollow tube that we've welded and this gives us extra vacuum space. So the idea is, as the ball goes down, there's no air there to pressurize. So the rod that runs all the way through the pressure vessel has the seal on it that we were talking about here on the front. And that right there goes all the way through the pressure vessel. And then on the backside we have to seal as well. And that's what this is, this is a very heavy, very special piece that has a certain surface finish on it. And that's gonna go in this housing right here that David's working on and David's putting seals in this thing. This is how the seals work on the back. You've got these special seals that as they see pressure from the inside, it blows up the seals like a balloon and it seals along this surface. So that's what David's doing right now. We've got this special piece that's gonna go on the back of the whole assembly and you get these grooves in there and he's trying to get the seals in there so that we can seal on the back as well as the front of the whole thing. That's what we're scared of. I'm scared of the leak Are you guys of the leak? - (David) Yep. - (Jeremy) Yeah, that's probably our weakest area there. - Yeah. So today's goal is to assemble this whole thing and do a leak test on the front and the back of the pressure vessel and see if we can shoot this thing. All that's gonna be put together with these huge flanges down here. And we've got these spiral wound gaskets here as well. So there's a lot of places to leak and we're hoping it doesn't, that's what today's all about. [machine operating] - Whoa, whoa, whoa. Get it back down a little. [indistinct] - (David) You just put them in like that, yeah. - Get over on this side, when he put the bolt in get it on the pop from the back. - (Jeremy) Now we got to put our seal on there- - (Donnie) Well, I wouldn't. We gonna get there, we gonna get there. All right, now you drop it in there. - (Destin) I'm getting too excited. [Destin laughs] - And that's why I did put them above halfway, so you guys could drop in there. - (Destin) That sounds like something that you learned the hard way. [laughs loudly] - (Donnie) Don't always put, never put your easy bolts in first. It's "good and tight", German torque. [foreign language] [laughs loudly] - Make sure they are really tight. - (David) Lock tight on that wouldn't hurt nothing much. - (Destin) So the alignment between that and the barrel is critical, right? - It is. - (Destin) So we're just banking that they machined it right? - Exactly. I mean, I called out the references and I gave him key datum's and tell him what to reference and what to make sure things were, what parts were concentric and all the fits and everything have been really good. So hopefully they also made it concentric. - Right here? - Yes. All right. - And it's still aligned? - Yes, sir. - Okay. - Should be. - So then we go in a star pattern. So we're gonna go down or up? - Up. Tell me when it makes up. - It ain't made up yet, I can still see through it. - (Donnie) Little thin layer metal like a razor blade with a smear of graphite in between. And then it's just wrapped and wrapped and wrapped. - And then it actually cramps on that. So if you squish it all the way down, it's gonna index on that? - (David) That's right. If you mash it down so far that this is touching, well, you done went far, is no good anymore. - Oh really? - See how much wider this is than this? - Yes. - If you get all the way down to this surface, it can't seal it. - Oh, got it. Because it has to seal on that surface. - That's right. - If you go there then, okay, got it. I learned something, Smarter Every Day. - (Jeremy) Yeah man. - Now you see these holes, they're not too old, right? So you're gonna have to- - Is there a direction on this flange, I guess there is. - There is, that way is face up. - Slides right in there? - (Donnie) Well, I hope we've got enough bolts. - Drop it down. It's pinching on this side. - (David) Oh, we got that backwards. - It's fine. - (Destin) Is the gasket directional? - No. - No. [Jeremy laughs] - (David) I was talking about these. - Why y'all laughing at me? [laughs loudly] - That's a good question. - Let me say, flange on this side, flange on this side, we got in backwards [laughs loudly] - (Donnie) Of course now the bolts holes may be right, it might be the outside circumference or the- - (Jeremy) Yeah, that's kinda what I'm thinking too. The bolt holes are lined up, we're probably good. - (Donnie) It may be the outside of it is not- - You mean each individual bolt hole. - (Jeremy) Yeah. - So you don't know on the backside here, 'cause it's not threaded. See, like that bolt's low. - Yeah, it is. Yeah. - (David) You're pretty good. - Yeah, it's touching now, from what I can tell. [hammer banging] - You don't want something to come flying through there, I'm telling you now. [laughs loudly] Yeah, that's what I was worried about. Like yeah, I was right. Yeah. - (Destin) It's the same old budge, it should be aligned now. [grinder grinding] - Did you fix it in the back? It's all I got. I need a few more sandwiches, to put more torque on that. - (Donnie) I think y'all got German torque on it anyway. [Good and tight] - That one. - Yeah, that will fix him. [laughs loudly] There we go. - Laugh at us? - (David) We like seeing engineer's work. [laughs loudly] - Oh man. - (David) We don't get to see that real often. [laughs loudly] [indistinct] - (Destin) We got it. - Got it? - Yeah? - (Jeremy) Put that wrench on the other side. - (Destin) Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. - (Donnie) What you doing now buddy? - (Destin) Ready? - (Jeremy) Yeah. - All right. - (Jeremy) Oh boy. - (Destin) Found it. - (David) Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. - (Destin) Yeah, we gotta rotate it. - (David) And we forgot our gasket. - Oh man, ah shoot. At least we didn't put the fasteners in there David and then we go. [laughs loudly] [heavy machinery blocking the speakers] as long as my holder lines up, that's all. - (Jeremy) Put a bolt in there. - (Destin) Shooting over your shoulder here. - (David) We need to rotate it clockwise. Jeremy, I'll let you do your alignment back here. - Okay. Yeah man. Oh man, that's it. [indistinct] have to turn as well. [indistinct] - (Destin) What do you think? - I think we're tight, man. - (David) I think I see rubber squishing out here though. - Yeah we done squished the gasket here. Yeah, that's as tight as it needs to go. Oh yeah. [Jeremy laughs] Need a couple more of those screwdrivers. - Can I have that one? - Once I take it out it's gonna lock up where it is. - All right, so there's that. - Yep. - Now get the big piece. - Yep. So close. - I'm hurting you, aint I? - Yeah, you made it tighter on that side. [laughs loudly] - I put my hammer down. - I just realized that that should be behind it. - [indistinct] go between?. - You're allowed to ask questions. [Destin laughs] - Thank you. - It's preferred. [laughs loudly] - Yeah. - Can I ask a question? - You are definitely allowed. Okay. - I'm ready to put the barrel on this now. - (Donnie) I'm ready here to go boom. - Yeah, me too. We're gonna do that today, we're gonna be able to? - I don't know if we'll get there today. - We're gonna try to put some air in it that might be- - See if we can get a seal on it. - Yeah. - That bad boy is gonna go. - Dude, that is so sick. - Yeah. - I go like like that, right? Just start tapping on it, like ting ting ting. Yeah keep doing that. Might get a ball peen or something. - Oh look at you man Gaww that's redneck smart. [Jeremy laughs] - (Donnie) Squeeze them together, you won't be able to push it up or down. - That's pretty smart. - It is. - I'm gonna try and put a bigger hole in. - Okay, Jeremy go ahead. You come over here. - Okay. I think it's high. Yeah man. - Now you wanna hear the good news? - What's that? - I had to put that in there first. - (Destin) Are you serious? - Yeah, the pin. - Yeah. - Yeah. - At least we know how to do it. - Yeah, now we know it goes in there. [laughs loudly] - Oh, you got a nut on that? - Yeah I just unscrewed it. - That explains why I couldn't pull it out. - All right. Now we're got a little more complicated piece to get in there. [laughs loudly] - Now start pushing. It fell over. - Okay. Dang. - So now we gotta put the barrel on, get this in the right spot. - Yeah. Once we see that it's flush up there, then we can snug this up too, I know that we've got in the right place. We need to get things lined up, we'll see where that ends up. - All right, so David, do you want to move? Do we wanna pull the trailer back a little bit? - (David) Sure. - And what we're doing? - (David) Set it on There? - Yeah. - Make this way off, please. - (David) We had to do that manually. - (David) Oh, all I do is push the button. - (David) I thought, now boom the ground. [indistinct] Go ahead and drop some bolts in it. - (David) We got six bolts in it. - Man, you're strong, Destin. [laughs loudly] [indistinct] - Yeah. - (Jeremy) Might get pushed back [indistinct]. I think it actually should go forward. - David, watch that camera behind you. - So just semi-snug it there? - (Donnie) Bring it on this way. - (Destin) Do we even need the flange there Jeremy? I mean the gasket, that little yellow gasket. - (David) It didn't go up or down, Donnie? - (Donnie) No, it's on the pins. It just needs a gasket on it. - The rubber gasket. - Needs to go yonder way don't it? - Down. [Donnie shouts] [laughs loudly] He's just joking with you, man. - (David) I'm just supposed to push the buttons. - Pull it around to you. - There we go. - (Jeremy) Fill the tank. - (David) You ready? - Yeah, we wanna listen to the tank first. [air gushing] - (David) Put the push on it, didn't it? - Yeah. I didn't expect that to angle up like that. - (David) How come you didn't get your little panel on over there? - I don't hear anything. It should be sealed in the front. - Should be sealed in the front. Go ahead. - Okay. [air gushing] There's a lot of volume there. [Jeremy laughs] - (Jeremy) Yeah, it's a big thing. - Kind of goofing off. Okay, I'll go on the floor. Ready? - (Jeremy) Yeah, you recording this, I hope? - Yeah. - (Jeremy) Okay. [air gushing] - It rattled the tin on my building over there. - (Jeremy) Wow. - (David) I didn't know it was coming out the end of the barrel. [air gushing] - (Jeremy) So there's definitely at least a little bit of surface it can push on. - (David) Yeah, buddy. [laughs loudly] - Oh Gosh. - We need to put a baseball in it! - Ready? - (David) Contact. - Okay, moment of truth. We're gonna pressurize this thing. The question here is we've got that rod running all the way through. Does the pressure seal off right here where that plug is? And also do our seals back here work? What do you think, 300 PSI? - Yeah, that sounds like a good test. [air gushing] - (Destin) It appears to be holding. [cannon fires] Oh, golly bum. [laughs loudly] - (David) Why'd it do that? - (Jeremy) Wow. - So it decided to go. - So the cylinder overcame. - The pressure, so we need the sear. - It overcame our cylinder, we need more of the cylinder. [laughs loudly] Yeah man. Geez. - (Donnie) 300 out here, over- [air gushing] - (Destin) How are you doing that? Oh, look at that. There was a secondary shot because it opened the pressure up. - (Jeremy) Until they equalized. - (Destin) Until they equalized and then it closed back. - Oh my Gosh. [laughs loudly] - (David) Maybe we need to turn back where we had it? - (Jeremy) Yeah, I think I need to dial this back up. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. - (David) We don't got enough air pressure hold that. - (Destin) No pressure? - Apparently it didn't. So went- - (Jeremy) 'Cause we gotta overcome the spring and the pressure that's from in the tank. So if you say maybe 200 pounds from the spring, just rounding a number, plus- - (David) So we didn't have a spring on there at all yesterday. And we only put 175, so this easily held it. - (Destin) Right. - You now need to go ahead and hook up your hoses to that. - Well, we're trying not to use that part right now. - (Jeremy) We don't wanna test the sear just yet, we just want to hold it with the pressure. - So we might need... - Okay, so the latch wasn't doing nothing. - The latch is out of the way. - Yeah. - (Destin) We were just testing, see if we could do it without it. It is time. The moment we've been waiting for. - (David) I think it's gonna hit the- - (Destin) Oh my goodness, look at that. - (Destin) Oh dude. - Oh, he's moving now. - Oh dude. - It's moving. - (Destin) Oh, what hath we wrought? Going up. - (Jeremy) Oh my Gosh. [laughs loudly] - (Destin) Oh dude. - (Jeremy) This is insane, man. [laughs loudly] This is insane. - Oh, golly guys. Okay, here we go. Mark One Supersonic Baseball Canon, take one. Baseball's loaded. Goggle up, guys. [laughs loudly] Science is about to happen, here we go. All right, first shot, 300 PSI. - It's definitely quiet, I don't hear anything up here. - (Destin) No leaking? - Yeah. - (Destin) All right. - We're good up here. - (Destin) You guys ready? Three, two, one. [cannon fires] [crew gasps] [laughs loudly] - (Jeremy) Oh my gosh. - (David) Go see it. - We're about, Oh, I don't know, 50 feet away. This is quarter inch aluminum. We're gonna see what it does. 300 PSI, no vacuum. Goggle up, this is gonna be awesome. - Three. - Fire in the hole. - Two, one. [cannon fires] [laughs loudly] - Three. - Fire in the hole. - Two, one. [cannon fires] [laughs loudly] Two, one. [cannon fires] [laughs loudly] - Oh man. - (Destin) Oh man. And that's just 300 PSI. Dang. - (Jeremy) Yeah. - (Destin) That's awesome. - And that's a lot of power, man. - Oh my goodness. I think we need to paint this thing and we need to get out in a more scientific environment and probably get the high-speed camera out and see what's going on. But this is nuts. Today is the day. It's a thing of beauty. Check it out. So we've got our set up and let me walk you through what's going on. This is Jeremy, he's extremely excited. Are you extremely excited? - Very excited. - Very excited. So we've got the power bank there. We're using the generator. This is all nitrogen. The reason we're using nitrogen is the molecular weight of nitrogen is lower than air. Which means the speed of sound is higher. It's math, but I don't know, people will argue if it has to do with temperature, it has to do with molecular weight, whatever. I just know it's faster. Okay, the exact schlieren setup we're using is called a through beam. Schlieren set up, as you can see, Trent has the match there, you should see two matches, which we do. That's what we call the double shadow. And the reason it's a double shadow is because the light goes out and back in and it passes it twice. So the whole point of this first test is just to see where the baseball is relative to the shockwave. Now, Nolan Ryan, for example, when he was throwing, they measured his speed at home plate. Modern pitchers, they measure up at the hand. So I think we're gonna have a similar situation because we're shooting with nitrogen. It's not that much faster than the normal speed of sound and air. So I think what's gonna happen is the baseball is gonna come out faster than the speed of sound and air. And then it's got this much distance to slow down due to drag. So I think, this is just hypothesis, I think what's gonna happen is that baseball is going to be out here by the schlieren mirror at about the same time it's passing the shockwave. So I do not think this shot is going to show the baseball going faster than the speed of sound. But this is just the test shot to ring everything out, make sure everything's working. We'll see what happens. Should be fun. This thing, the math says we can be rated up to a thousand PSI. We're gonna go to 750 PSI. We've got a big thick, real big thick shield over there. Let's go look at it real quick. So here you go, two one inch thick sheets of steel. That is a massive target. We're not gonna hit that today. I don't think, I think we're gonna shoot over it, we might hit it. But the goal, because I have to make a decision. Do I measure the true velocity of the baseball or do I just try to see how it interacts with the shockwave or do I get a really interesting baseball smushing up against that plate? So today I just wanna see if the baseball, it runs the shockwave and then I'll fiddle with this over the next few days and get the shot I want. So anyway, let's go back behind the shielding, which is where we stand in case the pressure vessel ruptures. So here we go. Let's look at the image. All right. - [Crew] Do we have red circle? - (Destin) Red circle? - (Jeremy) Can we do that one more time? Trent just to make sure. - Okay, we're about to go through the safety checklist, which is right here. This is what the control panel looks like. We tried to make it as straightforward as possible. We're gonna add gas here. We're gonna do the first shot at 750 PSI, which is the highest pressure we've ever pressurized this thing to. If you know anything about pressure vessels, we're gonna be behind this steel, right? - Absolutely. - Okay, so here we go. Ready for loading procedures. Ramrod. There we go. Is your heart beating fast? [laughs softly] It is? You're excited too. It doesn't feel right to me, this excited about a thing. - Okay, confirm all clear of the trailer. - Clear. - (Jeremy) Switch tank to vent ready. - (Destin) Oh man, you're ready? - (Jeremy) I'm ready. - (Destin) Okay. - (Jeremy) Okay. So the tank is capable of holding pressure now. - So we're pulling the vacuum now. My heart's not beating quite as fast, is yours? - It's had a chance to calm down. [laughs loudly] - Okay. All right. [breathes heavily] So an absolute vacuum is negative 14.7 PSI. If we can get somewhere below 13, we're good. About to pressurize here by adding gas. All right, tank is pressurizing. Nobody get outside the steel right now. That is a lot of volume. So we're gonna be holding this for quite a while, aren't we? - (Jeremy) Yeah. - This is tickling all of the brain parts [Jeremy laughs] that need to be tickled. - Yes. - We've got baseball. We've got golly, we've got ideal gas law. We've got aerodynamics. We have mechanics. We have mechanical design. I get to push a button and loud things happen. - You get to push a button underneath the red covers way. [laughs loudly] - All right, here we go. 180 PSI. We're at minus 13.9 on the vacuum. There will be a significant sonic boom. - [Trent] I'm scared. - I'm a little tingly. We're not quite 300 PSI. Dude, we have a really good vacuum right now. 540 PSI. We're losing our vacuum. Hey, we're losing our vacuum. Do you wanna shoot? Here we go, you ready? - (Jeremy) Ready. - (Destin) Three, two, one. [cannon fires] - (Destin) What on Earth. - Whoa. Where'd it go? - (Jeremy) That ball disintegrated. - (Destin) No it didn't. - (Jeremy) I think it hit the front- - It did hit the back. [laughs loudly] Get the- - (Jeremy) Hold on, hold on, the tank is safe. - Tank is safe. - (Jeremy) Okay. [Destin laughs] - (Jeremy) Oh, it's shredded, man. Oh, wait, you can see the seams. [Jeremy laughs] - Fantastic. Okay, so at some point we're gonna get that high speed. Oh man. Okay, cool, let's go do science. I don't think that one's gonna be supersonic. - (Jeremy) So we're gonna need maybe three pieces of tape? I think our tape failed, that's why we started losing that- - I think, yeah, there's some early shockwaves I can see. Okay, yeah, so- [crew shouts] Oh wait. [laughs loudly] - Oh man. - Dude, what have we done? I've never seen anything like that. Is it disintegrating? - (Jeremy) What? - (Destin) It's deformed. - (Jeremy) Yeah, I would definitely say the ball is already tethering and- - Look how flat the front is. - We're not even near the limits of the system. - (Jeremy) We're barely over half of our capacity. - (Destin) Look at it, it's beautiful. - (Jeremy) Can we just walk over and put a ruler in front of mirror now? - (Destin) That's supersonic. - (Jeremy) And then we'll know how much that transient space is? - (Destin) You can tell it's supersonic by the angle. - It has a Mach cone. And it has like secondary oblique shocks. We can do the theta beta, what's it called? Theta-beta-Mach equation? No? - [Trent] I don't know that one. - (Jeremy) I don't know. - I think that's what it's called. There's an equation that we can look at that oblique shock right there. This is the start- - (Jeremy) What is that? - (Destin) I saw it too. - Play it. - (Jeremy) Oh, there's another, what is that? - (Destin) Is it closing behind it? - (Jeremy) You got something funky going on. Wow. Is that like a, dropping something in water? - It's like a Monroe effect, but aerodynamically, I have no idea what we've done. [Jeremy laughs] We're just gonna, I just have no idea what we've done. So this is one of those things where you plan it for about over a year. You start with a meeting, you think the science works and it does. And you slowly make design decisions and you try to do things like this. This took a month. - Yeah. - And then you slowly plan things out and the science holds and it works. I was wrong though. I did not think we would be supersonic on the first shot. We need to measure it, we need to figure out that velocity. So do you have something we can calibrate? - Yeah absolutely. - (Destin) Point 014. Now this is rough. That's it. Now active. So bow shock, what you got? 1050 miles an hour. 1050 miles an hour. Where's my phone? Mach 1.38. [laughs loudly] I'm legitimately having problems functioning correctly. Okay, day two. We're gonna make sure that we actually did go supersonic because the shockwave was detached from the nose of the baseballs on schlieren. So the change today is got the plate closer, it was amazing that we hit it, but we got the plate closer. I've got two stobs in the ground, that's an Alabama term. Stob, S-T-O-B, it means stick of wood in the ground. So we've got to stob here and a stob here. They're 12 foot apart. We've got the camera right there. So as the baseball goes across, not only can we get velocity this time, we've got a really good pixel calibration and we'll be able to get the drag coefficient of the baseball at hypersonic, no, transonic speeds. Should be cool. So our vacuum this time is not pulling very good. In fact, it's going the wrong way. - (Jeremy) Ready if you are. - 530 PSI. About minus four on the vacuum. Okay, here we go. Five, four, three, two, one. [cannon fires] Golly. Two, one. [cannon fires] Golly. Okay. Wow. - (Jeremy) That is some serious stuff. - Safe. Okay, I'm gonna go to high-speed. Okay, the indisputable two stick method. Velocity is equal to distance divided by time. The time to the first stick is 29 milliseconds. And remember, this is happening fast. We're recording at 28,500 frames per second. The time to the second stick is 36.8 milliseconds. Subtract those two and divide, that gives us 1,538 feet per second, which is basically 1050 miles per hour. Adjust for altitude and temperature. And yeah. Hey, it's supersonic. - (Jeremy) Yeah? - That was Mach 1.35. - (Jeremy) What? - I mean, I just measured straight up with poles. [laughs loudly] That's just, yeah. 1.35. - (Jeremy) We got a similar speed. - It's a lower speed because our pressure was lower. - (Jeremy) Yeah, for sure. But I mean similar in a sense, that's pretty. - It's supersonic. [air gushing] Okay. We have a Supersonic Baseball Cannon, it is verified. Ready? Three, two, one, fire. [cannon fires] [cannon fires] The baseball goes away. [laughs loudly] Okay, we gotta get tighter on that. - Three, two, one. [cannon fires] [laughs loudly] - I wanna see it. [cannon fires] - (Destin) All right. - All right, hold on. - (Destin) It might be too big. - The major league ball is a little bit bigger than that. There it is. - All right. - Here we go. - Okay, here we go. So the way we've got this aimed, so it's hard to see, but we have a little bitty reticle in there. And I have a mark right here. And I know the offset between the red dot and where the impact is. So it's gonna hit 17 inches down, 12 and a half left from that spot, which is why we can zone the high-speed camera in so tight. This is a pretty dangerous shot for the high-speed camera, but the imagery can't really see that, you just have to trust me. The imagery's gonna look really good. You ready? - (David) Yeah, protect yourself. - (Destin) I'm watching, here we go, here we go, dad. [cannon fires] Did it trigger? - (David) Yeah. - (Jeremy) It blew the camera. It didn't go over, but it definitely blew the camera. - (Destin) Okay. - We're gonna have to put sand bags on the legs or something. - Hold on, yeah, don't touch any cables. Oh my goodness. It just goes away. - It looks symmetrical, doesn't it? - It looks like a galaxy. It looks like a, that's unbelievable. The seams are the strongest part. That's an official major league baseball. [baseball exploding] [baseball exploding] - (Destin) Oh, strip the aluminum? - (Jeremy) Yeah, that's what I said. All the aluminum threads came out. - Pulled the threads out. - (Jeremy) Everything else held up. - Okay, it looks like that was the last shot for the day. What happened was, right here, you see this bolt right here? The bolt was through there and it was holding our push cylinder in position. And it stripped all the aluminum out of the steel bolt, which is why threaded aluminum is always a bad thing. So that's it for now. Wow. Looks like our seal had some issues too. What? Oh. - Jeremy, go down with it. - (Destin) That's where we hit. - (Trent) Thank you. - All right. That was amazing. I hope you enjoyed checking out how we built the Supersonic Baseball Cannon. I'm in love with this thing. And I'm super excited about all the different things we can do with it. So if you're interested in supporting Smarter Every Day, you know me well enough to know that I'm a little bit out on a limb here, but if you're interested, you can go to Patreon.com/smartereveryday and I'll send you a baseball. Literally everyone who supports on Patreon, I'm gonna send one of these baseballs to you. And to end this video, I thought you would really enjoy seeing how the kids packed up all the baseballs to ship them out. They had a lot of fun with that. So anyway, Patreon.com/smartereveryday. I'm grateful to you. I'm Destin, you're getting smarter every day. Have a good one. Bye. [children chattering] So we're using this as an opportunity to teach the kids how to work. I signed all these, you guys are boxing them, right? [children chattering] Yeah? And then they move over here to the older kids. What'd you got here? Let me see. Oh, how long did that take that long? - Not long. - (Destin) Not long? What about over here? How are y'all doing? - Pretty good. - (Destin) Pretty good? Yeah, sealing them up. - [Child] You're gonna have to with this packages- - (Destin) Are you guys doing, men? - [Boys] Good. - (Destin) Yeah, is it working? - [Boys] Yes sir. - (Destin) All right. - I thought you said [indistinct] about two seconds? - [Child] They do, if you get it- - All right, all right. Keep going kiddos. Quality control's the thing, we're gonna inspect everything. It's really good. Giving them some money, they feel like they're getting the job done. They are, they're doing a lot of work. So anyway, that's pretty cool. Thanks for letting us do this.
Info
Channel: Smarter Every Day 2
Views: 854,612
Rating: 4.9267612 out of 5
Keywords: smarter, every, day, science, physics, destin, sandlin, education, math, smarter every day, experiment, nature, demonstration, slow, motion, slow motion, science education, what is science, Physics of, project, experiments, science project, baeball, fastball, supersonic, aerodynamics, fastest pitch, world's fastest pitch, cricket, cnc, machining, welding, vacuum cannon
Id: E60G3ba4TUA
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 64min 59sec (3899 seconds)
Published: Sun Sep 06 2020
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