What does a Gong Sound Like when Hit with a 1189mph Baseball? - Smarter Every Day 267

[Music] hey it's me destin welcome back to smarter every day we are right in the middle of a huge experiment it's kind of like you walked in halfway through class it's cool though there's a couple of videos you can watch and get caught up later but basically we built a giant air cannon that'll shoot a baseball faster than the speed of sound this thing was a massive undertaking that's honestly really kind of like the accumulation of my childhood love of baseball and my study of aerodynamics and my work as a developmental weapons tester this canon allows me to continue learning in a hands-on way about how things move at supersonic velocities which is not an easy thing to come by this cannon was a beast to design and build and the patrons of smarter every day paid for it for which i am very grateful and now i'm at that critical point where i want to start characterizing the canon and how it works meaning i'm learning how to dial it in so i can make a ball go exactly how fast i want it to go the ability to precisely control the velocity and timing of a baseball will let me do all kinds of other experiments so it's tempting to look at this as some kind of big youtube stunt but that is not what it is so today we're continuing our mission to graph the relationship between how the amount of air we jam into the cannon correlates with how fast the ball goes when that air pressure is released so we fill it up to a certain air pressure we pull the trigger two one and then we use high speed cameras and math to figure out how fast the ball exits the barrel and then we graph our data we have our first data point also we can measure how fast the ball decelerates so we can calculate drag on the baseball at different velocities these four high speed cameras give us amazing slow motion footage and allow us to quantify times distances and velocities so we can understand what's going on this is the largest setup i've ever done on smart everyday so trent's going to be helping run the four high-speed cameras and george is going to help document the entire process we only need like the first 30 feet of baseball flight for scientific purposes which means we don't really care what happens to the baseball after that so we asked the patrons of smarter every day for suggestions of interesting things we could hit with a supersonic baseball in the earlier video which is really part one of this video we shot a container of rainbow sprinkles and a jar of extra heavy mayonnaise which was surprisingly gross let's go get smarter every day and learn more about the supersonic baseball cannon we've got some mirrors i know that seems kind of silly but i think this is going to be one of the coolest shots we're going to look down the barrel as it's firing this is what i'm most excited about check that out we're going to shoot that's so loud we're gonna shoot a gong today raythex has been a patron for a year he suggests or she suggests uh five pounds of silly putty and then they gave us uh an amazon link to get this and so we bought five of them so the thought of shooting silly putty is that it's a non-newtonian fluid and it should act like a solid if it is hit rapidly so it's potentially possible for us to shatter this like glass so so like i can push my finger into it yeah but then if i punch it it doesn't make a dent oh does it hurt yes actually it does okay so that but a baseball i wonder what it does i have no idea let's throw it in here and get it cold so the challenge with silly putty is that as a non-newtonian fluid it flows under the force of gravity and by the time we pressurize the cannon it would droop down off the bottle we were using to hold it and because it's not safe to be downrange with pressure on the cannon we had to improvise an odd little contraption to corral the putty 390. all right we're about at 400. everybody ready yep george you ready yeah i'm gonna give you a countdown okay 400 psi versus silly putty before the shadows get here okay ready yep and three two one one two one [Music] tape survived there's a piece of the board ooh all right oh the fracture it looks like metal breaks during a tension break like cavities were created in it yeah look at that tension breaks you can see the porosity determined where it broke oh man that just looks like a fracture edge is what that looks like i've got this uh professor dr hizelli and i took a fracture mechanics class for him and he always carried some silly putty with him if you pull it very fast it breaks okay and if i do the same thing with a slower rate so that would like a gum so there'll be quasi-static there exactly all right let's see whether it behaves more like a liquid or a solid in the slo-mo [Music] so [Music] oh you can see it move did you see it move you could see the baseball move to the side you could actually see it redirect so it it diverted it enough where it didn't it didn't hit the the backstop so that took more energy out of the baseball than anything else because it didn't hit the backstop and it only made it to the trees what an interesting setup it looks like tuna a fencepost you just look at that like what is that that assemblage of objects is ridiculous looks alabama it looks like a person you see their head instead of like sweet home welfare sweet home alabama governor kay i ever just put that that looks like governor k ivy i like kiv she's pretty good so we just got mach 1.3 with no vacuum really yes mach 1.3 no vacuum seems kind of easy [Laughter] so this is our data as of the end of today's test we ran out of sunlight for the day and when we came out the next morning there was a beautiful spider web and i still can't figure out how the water drops don't slide down on the vertical strands it's amazing anyway we had another container of sprinkles which was suggested by patron andrew maxie from before in our first video we saw what happened to the sprinkles on the impact side but we were really curious to see what happens on the exit side we set up our slo-mo camera so that we could see that angle and my son was off for the day so he came and ran the checklist for us move fire switch to release to drop s-e-a-r seer the fire switch is in release the seer has dropped that's going up quicker okay we're going to 600 so take it to like 605 okay yes sir create a trigger ready george are you ready yes sir okay here we go super sonic baseball versus sprinkles 600 psi have a minus 10 psi vacuum in five four three two one two one two one two one all right so let's look at what it did with the sprinkles first [Music] isn't this beautiful okay so there's so much to talk about here let me back it up way back here to right before impact and what i'd like you to do is pick a sprinkle and i don't know how to put it any other way but i need you to fully commit to that sprinkle complete focus here no other sprinkles exist except your sprinkle you got one what i'm going to do now is i'm going to play it forward slowly and i want you to follow your sprinkle i think this is so cool i don't fully understand the mechanics of this but pretty much every single sprinkle eventually rips apart did your sprinkle explode yeah mine did too it's so rad i've watched so many of these sprinkles explode okay so anyway another thing i want to point out let me back it back up again to get the colors right on this we ran this footage through a denoising algorithm and i'm going to cut that off now you see all the fuzziness that's sensor noise when i play it again watch what appears to be a shock wave propagating out from the impact point this only shows up on noisy footage here we go [Music] oh right isn't it amazing okay so i'm not really sure what that is i think it's the shock wave flatten it out when it hits the front of the bottle but i don't really know so let's back it up and i'll play it one more time if it's a line it's gonna be right there mach 1.5 would make sense if we get that and our number is 1189 miles per hour did you get it did we get mark 1.5 we got 1.54 heck yeah yeah so so we can actually predict with pressure and our graph oh dude it's like it aligns it's linear do we want to go straight to the gong or we do mirror first mary's going to make a mess here's going to be a mess it's going to take a long time to set up you want to go straight to the gong let's do it oh my gosh and now it's time for the gong this was suggested by smarter everyday patron andrew and sourced by smarter everyday patron bryson bryson's been supporting for four years thank you very much let's do it [Music] i am very excited about this this is gonna be awesome if you have a little crease in there then it'll your vacuum will leak out all right so that's a good seal right there no creases have we ever done a 700 psi shot am i yelling at you yeah every time so we're taking the shot very seriously we've got a big shield and a bunch of bottles in between us and both the tank and the gong because we don't know what's going to happen just get here for now and then when we go to actually fire you're going to move forward with destin because that's we don't want to get a ricochet so right now we're pressurizing the tank so if the tank pops we're behind steel then when it fires what's the thing that's going to where we're going to hit from if we get hit yeah so we want to make sure we can't see that no part of your body can see that it's going to be a flying guillotine yes it'll just take off a finger or whatever his arm that old movie where the guy takes off his hat it's got razor blades in it chucks it yes you seen that that's james bond right that's james bond is it james bond i got to james bond golly is that really things blonde i think so i think so when i was a kid i seriously overestimated the lethality of throwing stars you just you relied on it in a lethal situation well i mean i mean like deep thought destiny i mean like gi joe people could die because that us that sounded like a gun oh we lost our we lost our vacuum oh okay that's what that was so we lost our vacuum the tape popped so the tape ripped damn it scared me so bad wow that was a thump yeah it was so we're going 700 with no tape that's what we're doing now god that scared me they scare you yeah we were talking about like throwing stars and guillotines should we go to 800 since we're going yes 800 would be more useful than 700 yes okay we're going to 800 psi i feel like we've been pressurizing this as long as i've been alive we are now at the highest pressure this cannon has ever seen 800 you ready i'm ready five four three two one fire two one fire two one fire oh my god where'd the gong go all right oh went right through wow oh man [Applause] doesn't sound as good does it good aim again buddy oh my gosh you crushed it [Music] [Music] [Music] okay that was awesome did you see the bowls that is amazing go back to the bulge that it did oh my gosh it looks like water it's oh see that right there that's a thumbnail that's where it starts ripping you see it go take a walk dude enough youtube for you today young man what time is it dude 1.45 mach 1.45 all right so this is our data right now i questioned this data point a little bit because we we had a vacuum set up on it and we ruptured so there we are i don't know looks like it might be a little bit of a curve but we'll see remember the mirror from the beginning this awesome target suggestion was provided by smarter everyday patron patrick flanagan i've done mirror shots like this before and the setup actually proves to be quite the technical challenge let me explain using a view from a camera that george set up on a stick behind the target what we want to do is see a reflection of the baseball over here to the side which means we can set the camera up to the side and we can see right down the flight axis the interesting thing about this setup is we have the sun just off the screen up here to the top right which means that sun is also going to hit the mirror which sends light back up towards the baseball in fact you can see the reflection of the sunlight on the ground there as the baseball gets closer and closer to the mirror it gets closer and closer to that sunlight that's bouncing off of the mirror back up towards the flight line as the ball exits the baseball cannon it's in shadow but when it gets all the way down here to that sunlight it's going to be illuminated by the reflection of the sun's rays more light is good for the high-speed camera so we want that so in order to enhance that we put another mirror off here to the side hoping to bounce more of the sun's light back up to the baseball because of the way we set this up we expect the baseball to fly through sunlight twice and the rest of the time it's going to be flying in the shadow now that we understand that the next thing to figure out is where exactly along the flight line should we focus the camera we've got the cannon shooting to this mirror bouncing back here to this camera lens so the question is where is it going to be in focus so in order to do this we've got my son sitting there and we're focusing on him but we're going to impact right here so if we're focused there we're not going to see the ball when it hits the mirror if we're focused on exit we're not going to see the ball when it hits the mirror or there so we have to choose so my gut says we focus from here to here so we kind of like part our focus right here there will be no motion blur there'll be zero motion blur yeah so we can expose as much as we want we set the camera to 15 000 frames per second and after one last optical alignment we were ready for the shot five four three two one five two one five we triggered on everything all right start the data wow george dude holy moly dude that is wild that's when the math works right there [Music] [Music] uh [Music] wow you see the goodness gracious good job dude that's great i'm sorry i'm just excited good job aiming son yeah for real hey really good job [Music] what's interesting is the stuff in the background's still in focus [Music] this whole piece is just moving oh look at the other mirror still there that's the wind got to it and blew it away no the wind from the cannon yeah it went through it there it is oh it's moving that way oh you can see it change directions which is what everybody's saying but i just felt like i needed to say it louder for some reason that was a really good day thank you for watching smarter every day we are going to do more oh data time date of time data time we got to put our data on the graph here's 36 10. you ready thank you for watching smarter every day we're going to get more data to fill in our supersonic baseball cannon that's pretty characterization characterization so please consider uh subscribing we are super excited thank you to all of the patrons that suggested the different things to shoot sprinkles was andrew maxie we had uh what is going on what is that well i'm sorry what [Music] i'm sorry is the mirror rippling like liquid what is that okay that's amazing all right so what i haven't told you is the reason we're getting this data is because uh we're gonna do something crazy we're gonna do something super super crazy with the supersonic baseball cannon it's gonna be hard it's yeah we're gonna try to do something crazy i think we'll do it but we're going to try i think it's possible and we need this data if it happens it'll be the craziest shower thought i've ever had so yeah i hope it works please consider subscribing to smarter every day we are grateful thanks oh god that does not sound right you know what's fun shooting a supersonic baseball cannon at stuff and getting really cool data you know what's also fun making your own canon this episode of smarter every day is sponsored by kiwico cubico is a really cool subscription service where you get kits sent to your house so a child you love can explore and learn all kinds of different steam concepts cubico offers nine different subscription lines each catering to different age groups to teach about science technology engineering arts and math these things make fantastic gifts everything you need to create an awesome project comes in the kit so you don't have to worry about running to the store and getting more supplies it's been awesome to see my son mature as he's grown up with the kits at this point he's empowered he can do the whole project on his own in fact he's now learning communication skills and he's helping his sister do hers cubico now ships to more than 40 countries so if you want to check this out go to kiwico.com smarter and i'll let the ceo of kiwico sandra tell you what you get with that offer do you know what the promo is yeah you get a free crate you get a free crate yeah that's awesome that's what you get straight up you know that people on the internet do ads for stuff i don't do ads unless i really like the product you're gonna love kiwico kiwico.com smarter this is the kind of thing that's going to change a child's life it's right here really does it have like rainbow sprinkles on it there's a bunch of ants on it no way is it really man there's a bunch of ants on it that's it so that it turned into sugar and the ants found it before we did where see em all oh dude [Laughter] good yeah i'm good does it smell like sugar it smells good it doesn't smell bad you smell it smells like a ice cream shop

Channel: SmarterEveryDay

Views: 3,177,401

Keywords: Smarter, Every, Day, Science, Physics, Destin, Sandlin, Education, Math, Smarter Every Day, experiment, nature, demonstration, slow, motion, slow motion, education, math, science, science education, what is science, Physics of, projects, experiments, science projects, Supersonic Baseball, Baseball, Baseball Cannon, World's Fastest Pitch, Mayonnaise, Extra Heavy Mayo, World Series

Id: at-xZA5U1ps

Length: 23min 33sec (1413 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 07 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/bordain_de_putel]

I want to see this thing firing a ball at that mechanical baseball bat from stuff made here.

[u/Jaywah]

Smarter Everyday may be one of the best YouTube channels available for science and technology. I'd recommend it to a friend.

[u/strppngynglad]

why did it stop right when it was getting good! wtf

[u/GagOnMacaque]

Gong with the wind

[u/iflynething1]

Anyone notice the static discharge spark just before impact? If you watch the full video it happens on the sprinkles can and the silly putty container.

[u/CaptOblivious]

Smarter Every Day is my favorite channel on the citadel.

[u/Albino_Black_Sheep]

Commercial right before the money shot. Too bad.