Capillary Action in Microgravity experiment for NASA's DIME student competition

This is the video of a high school team's experiment in NASA's DIME competition. The experiment is a study of fluid capillary forces. Initially, the colored liquid stays in the bottom of the container and only rises a small distance up in the capillary tubes due to the capillary force working against gravity. That distance is dependent on the inner diameter of the tube.

When the experiment is dropped in free fall, microgravity conditions exist and the capillary force draws the liquid further up in the tubes.

The DIME experiments experience weightlessness (aka microgravity or "zero gravity") as they are dropped in the NASA Glenn 2.2 Second Drop Tower.
This experiment was designed and built by high school students in the Troy Athens High School in Troy, Michigan.

More info may be found here: http://spaceflightsystems.grc.nasa.gov/DIME.html

Category:

Education

Tags:

• NASA
• Glenn
• WING
• DIME
• microgravity
• fluid
• forces
• motion
• student
• competition
• drop
• tower
• Water
• capillary
• Troy
• Athens