How To Swim in Corn Syrup (Part 3)

This is a rubber band powered swimmer in corn syrup that uses helical wires to produce thrust by the difference in drag from the horizontal and vertical components of the wire. This works great at low Reynolds number(also works at high Reynolds number). There are many microorganisms such as E. coli that use helical flagella to propel themselves in much the same way.
Filmed by Diego Saenz and Patrick Underhill at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Funded by the NSF.
http://grahamgroup.che.wisc.edu/

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• water
• corn
• syrup
• swimmer
• reynolds
• number

[flymaninhawaii]

Just saw it in fluid class. low Re fluid is amazing.

[keithguh]

Cool stuff.