The Weird Physics of The Putt-Putt Boat 

I have bought it every year lol

Bhai choto bela mela te 10 taka diye kintam...

Bandra fair

Never before have I seen this, how?

@@tarottman3926 because he is from India.. In india these types of toys were common before

Ikr kids these days don't even know they exist

@@Zed9659 hi there!, btw hw ol r u

@@cheetah2172 18

Oh wow

I am 21

mujhe bhi apne bachpan ke din yaad aa gayee.

Does seeing a shit on the street brings back some nostalgic memories as well? You guys do have a shit throwing festival, right? hahahahaha

@@zydomason damn, very funny. Laughing my ass off to this insanely clever troll and genius witty post

@@zydomason I just assume how stupid a human can be . Without memories , what does your life mean

@@zydomason No shit trrowing festival in our religion Hinduism..stop spreading fake news....if you have balls name it...

Rode on a boat that functioned in this way as a kid actually, never really thought about it until I saw this video, kind of forgot about it. He described it as shooting bubbles of water out the back of it, I didnt get it at the time and I still dont

@@TugIronChief yeah thays why it just clicked while I was watching this. Happened 20 years ago though, I would have been around 7 or 8 so that way probably just him trying to explain it in a way I could understand

No quicker way to a forced suicide that to invent alternative forms of transportation. Maybe try and figure out how to tax the public everytime we blink? That's the road to fame and fortune.

@@johnnymcblaze The future is taxing for oxygen. Once all the trees are owned they will charge people a fee to breath air

@@Orthanderis They're already taxing the production of CO2 in some cases...

He makes me feel like I'm stupid lmao like.we dont understand simple physics he acts like he is teaching children

New world record for being the fastest to get 17 likes

I agree completely this guy helps me have deeper understanding of science

Couldn't agree more. And there are plenty of great educational channels out there, but within the world of science, I don't think anyone in my adult life has helped me understand more NEW concepts so intuitively.

That and you can tell he really enjoys the things he does. Watching someone do something they truly enjoy is awesome in and of itself.

It looks the one of the Chinese made ones you can order off amazon.

@@ducksauce1290 He said it was made out of a shaving cream can.

@@bodeine454 I saw a video from 12 years ago with Gillette written on it. I'd guess Duck Sauce is correct and you can buy them made out of recycled parts off ebay-amazon.

Ones made from glass are neat

Ecletic Space did lots of interesting scientific research on it

I like your way of thinking on that. That particular mechanism is called a ratchet and pawl

I'll give you a hint, what you're describing is a steamboat

THATS EXACTLY WHAT I WAS THINKING PONYO!!!!!

@@Corundrom steamboats use steam to turn giant paddle wheels that paddle through the water in order to move the boat. The physics behind why a Putt-Putt and a steam boat move through water are completely different.

Waterdynamics may be🤔

@Aaron Bredon Excellent observation. I hope someone will make a Putt-Putt boat with the bow in the exact shape and draft as stern so as to test how much the shape of the bow helps to move the boat forward.

@@simon6071 also put the hull backwards?

@@revimfadli4666 No question mark. Good idea.

@@meetv7700 hydrodynamics

Did you have one as a child? Or have any other similar neat toys from your childhood? I remember my dad giving me a piece of string, about 2.5’ long, tied at the ends (making a loop) and it had a clothing button in the middle with the string running through two of the button holes. If you held the string loop with both hands with the button in the middle and twisted the string several times, then you could pull the string and then relax the string while gently moving your hands in and out from each other and the button would spin fast, making a unique whirling sound. I would do that for hours! Lol. Simple, cheap entertainment!

@@EasternSunset007 hey I had one of those too

Jason, I didn't own any such toy boat, although it was like the most common toy found everywhere on every carnival and fares. Although, the string and button thing you mentioned, first of all great explanation, I made those type of toys and played with them too. For me it was my grandfather who taught me how to make one of those. My first try was to use a piece of circular blade shaped cardboard instead of a button though. Does bring back memories, and really good ones too. :)

@@EasternSunset007 i had one.

At the festival stalls in viskarma puja

Yp i remember

Good ol' times

ikr

Yeah

Yes. Remember this as a child 30 years ago.

Also, make a flotilla of the small ones, attach some sort of resistant string to them, and be pulled around while sitting on a rowboat or kayak or something like that

Keep me posted

Exactly what I thought

Reminds me of that one scene in ponyo

Ponyo

Better way??? The boat is perfect and he did a great job of explaining how it works. What do you want done in a “better way”?

I've already suggested a few modifications to the _engine,_ but to become *_Boaty McBoatFace²_* the boat itself could: • Be coated with a water repellent surface to reduce drag, • Be made out of a structurally light, but strong, material (like carbon fibre) to reduce mass. • Be modified to be a Catamaran, a Tri-maran, or even a single hulled vessel with an asymmetrical outrigger. • Have the shape of it's hull optimised to suit this kind of propulsion, or just reconfigured for the purpose you want it for. Eg: A flat-bottomed barge for river transport; Long & sharp (like a Littoral Combat Warship) for high speed: Wide & with a rounded deep hull (like a oil tanker) for cargo, etc.

I have seen other engibe designs utilizing a vertical coil in the copper because the hot water moves upwards. Then you get an intake and output out of the system thereby removing the put putt entirely which is the charm of a put putt boat.

@@aaroncarr-mackay2457 Probably the coolest little steam powered boat which I've ever seen was based on *Heron of Alexandria's* piece of absolute genius, the *_Aeolipile._* The original device was a kind of *Steam Turbine* designed & built way back in _the 1st century AD!_ It consisted of a sealed copper boiler with two pipes rising vertically from it's flat top. Set between the pipes was a hollow copper sphere with two pipes bent 90° sticking out at opposite sides of the sphere (with open ends pointing in opposite directions). When a fire was lit beneath the full boiler, steam would rush up the pipes into the sphere, before whistling out the bent pipes, causing the sphere to rotate at what would have been a shockingly dramatic speed (recognising that the fastest things in the *Ancient Greek World* would have been horses & massive rowing/sailing ships ~ *Triremes).* The version I saw a video of had • a small spirit burner, • a boiler, with an intake piped in from with water outside • The sphere sat at the back of the boat (there was a curved metal baffle blocking steam from entering the boat). • When the spirit burner was lit, the water in the boiler turned to steam, which blasted out the bent pipes on the sphere, making it spin up with a whistle of increasing pitch, shoving the boat forward at impressive speed. [ _Sorry, this was years ago & I can't find the video._ ]

@@Ninth_Penumbra Cool, I have seen that before as well. The concept but not the boat with the mechanism. I imagine that design would still have lots of energy loss. But steam is basically how we get energy from nuclear plants.

I was so confused when I watched ponyo

He didn't do it but purchased it. Its available online

I burnt an orphanage

@@420hmm great job topper😬

I'll bet that is why you couldn't find them in the U.S., not even in the 1960s

@@420hmm damn

Yeah you are making kids remembering the old boat

Another 50+ year old gonna make one! Pure amusement...

Lk

Yeah

Same here in indonesia anyone on malaysia please answer ifyou guys had that toy too

@@ShiroCh_ID bruh this is toy??? T

Interesting tip (pun intended)

When I was a kid, my grandparents had this sound in their basement, we called it the monkey in the pipes. It got pretty crazy sounding at times, I even recorded some of it just to keep as an auditory memento

I don't believe that I've been around any operational steam radiators since I was a youngster back in the 70s and I'm not even sure if I ever heard any make that sound but I probably did a time or two, probably just don't remember.

Is that also why some home water pipes make a knocking sound & vibration?

@@Eduardo_Espinoza Not really. That condition is called water hammer. Thats when you close a valve and the moving mass of water in the pipe suddenly stops it hammers against the insides of the pipe. If the pipes are loosely hung they can bang against the walls.

He explains how simple it is. The "engine" is just a contained small flat space (chamber), with two thin metal pipes leading from it. The chamber needs to be elevated to fit the candle under it. Shouldn't be rocketscience

@@DaP84 Based on the idea that the water doesn't actually go anywhere, you can use a simpler design of a single pipe and no separate boiler, just seal the pipe at one end. I haven't tried this but I did a quick search and it seems like others have.

@@ML-sj3gi yeah, sounds like it could work too

The shape does affect the efficiency, but the propulsion comes from the momentum balance. Since the boat is so light and shallow, resistance from the water is almost negligible. You could do this with a square or circle and get a similar result, if less consistently directed.

@@grantmalone My exact thought.

Tried opening them?!?! 🤭 Just joking, cool vids here!

Most likely not, the scaled up volumes of water could never receive enough heat energy to turn a section of water in the pipe into gass

@@DaP84 how about with the new artificial sun, that China created?

Probablt but there’s be no reason for it. Modern boats convert fuel into ONLY propulsion l, without that vacuum portion, and they do it far more efficiently and with far more control.

@@rookiedetective569 thzt cant last forever

I remember from some discussion with friends years ago that inverting one of the pipes does not work, as it's not an inlet-outlet exclusive configuration, but both of the pipes work both ways, as this video also seem to suggest. So, in my view, it shouldn't boost the effect moving this boat. Of course it could anyway move and be a new concept, nevertheless you could use a one way valve instead of the Tesla fancy thing...

@@ec7283 a Tesla valve is a one-way valve that has no moving parts it works like a diode only for fluid or gas and was invented by Nikola Tesla a Tesla valve allowing water in from the front and out the back only would make it an incredibly efficient design

@@stacyroe619 yep, I know it, never mind...

I'm pretty sure the flow interference would defeat any potential gain from the intake direction. It seems like it would more likely eat at least a quarter of the propulsion in the backflow prevention. If we look at each tube as providing equal thrust in and out, removing one outtake is a 25% power loss. I don't think the directional change would add enough to overcome this. Tesla valves do also slow the flow slightly in the direction they do work, making the case likely worse than 25% power loss. Then there's added drag from the pipe or hole in the front...it's an interesting idea and I like it for that, but it might not run at all. Other comments mentioned home-made boats were finicky with the existing design.

ponyo.

@@Iangussey I was wondering if anyone else thought of ponyo while watching this

@@kentaraed8315 ha yeah me too! I was always curious how that thing worked

Indeed. Have done workshops about 20 years back, explaining steam to young kids, then explain such a boat and let them build one to take home. Did quite a few different workshops, but this one was one of my favorites.

perpetual motion machine eh? too bad it runs out once the sun goes down

@@Darktitanium159 not a perpetual motion machine, just an interesting development of the original experiment.

@@NSFWHarold i get it. i was just making light humor

It was invented by a Frenchman named Thomas Piot in 1891

@@davidb6927 oh so many years ago🧐

Thicker boiler walls should primarily make the transition between starting and stopping (by adding or removing the candle) slower, though it might be slightly quieter. It shouldn't change the process or speed very much while the engine is active. Being more rigid (via thickness or density) might also direct a tiny bit more force into the popping, causing more speed, but not because it's quieter. This might or might not outbalance the additional weight of the metal. Plasma temperatures (~3000 K or C) would break the water into hydrogen and oxygen ions, and they wouldn't readily reform as steam without cooling a lot. Far below this temperature, most metals would completely melt. Many would evaporate. Either result would release the hydrogen and oxygen plasmas, which would cool back to gases joining the open air. No more boiler, no more fuel, no more boat! Cooling wouldn't result in a pressure bounce, as the water would either stay liquid, or freeze into ice. The open ends of the tubes would prevent any sort of backfiring pressure that might reliquify the supercooled ice. It actually takes a lot of work to get ice into lower states and temperatures, far more effort than the heating process of dropping a candle underneath, but there are less common crystalline forms of ice, depending on temperature and pressure. (It's easier to add heat than remove it, once the crystal matrix has been made.) There are at least ten phases of ice, if I remember correctly, but it's been a while since I looked at the relevant chart. Different mechanical configurations could be interesting! If I had to guess, more than one tube allows both directional stability and letting the water flow more readily than with one tube. I've no clue if more than two tubes might change the behavior. You could definitely angle a tube or make one wider, if you wanted to have the boat consistently drive in a circle on its own accord. A rudder would be simpler for this, however, and allow changing the direction at will. I like the idea of trying a coil for the boiler instead of a tank. I wonder how much engineering we'd have to do on the number and form of the coils, in order to get the same effect, or maybe better. I think it would be more finicky about exactly where the flame is. I'd also like to try different hull designs. A racing boat or canoe design, or nacelles, would change the behavior slightly. Edit: Larger versions use an indented sheet-metal plate atop the boiler pan to pop in/out, magnifying the effect versus a completely rigid system. They do make these things big enough to push people, but not very fast. Small models are made using even very simple coils and eliminating the pan, but it seems those versions don't have quite as much power as with the pan.

With practice and possibly a couple revisions, two-part molds can be carved out of wood that will readily form thin sheet-metal (like pop and aerosol cans are made from) when hammered or hinged together. A couple of these could be made to form the top and bottom respectively, then the parts are trimmed, drilled and assembled with epoxy or solder. The top and bottom could optionally be assembled with a crimp. It wouldn't be easy for someone without manufacturing experience, but it would absolutely be possible, for any sufficiently determined maker.