Advanced Projection Ripple Tank, United Scientific

The Advanced Projection Ripple Tank is a comprehensive system for demonstrating basic wave phenomena using water waves.

A horizontal glass plate is mounted in a water-tight frame with foam beaches around the perimeter to suppress unwanted wave reflections. This tank is mounted on three tall legs with an angled mirror beneath the glass plate. A translucent screen is fitted to the front of the apparatus to display the projected image. A stray light shield can be placed around the back and sides of the apparatus to prevent ambient light from reaching the screen. In use, a pool of water a few millimeters deep is filled into the tank. A ripple generator for mounting and energizing ripplers is fitted to one side of the tank and an LED stroboscope lamp is adjustably mounted above the glass plate on a gooseneck support to provide the projection light. The ripple generator and the LED stroboscope lamp are both driven by a Wave Monitor control unit that synchronizes the wave generator’s oscillations with the stroboscope flashes to produce a stationary projected image. The wave generator can also be operated asynchronously, allowing the stroboscope flash frequency to be varied while the wave generator frequency remains fixed. This generates a moving projected image of variable speed. The included accessory set contains a series of five different ripplers (two of each), a pair of acrylic blocks, a barrier with slits, a clear foil with a printed grid, a plastic dropper, and a metric ruler.