Snowglobe

Few months ago found this empty snowglobes at a dollar store, got one and turned out to be kinda fun. Then i got this idea. Where im from, they used to have (they probably still have, but haven’t seen) souvenirs for tourists that were kinda like snowglobes but they had little boats floting. With what appeared to be 2 different density liquids (they wouldn’t mix), a little boat cutout will be floating on one of the liquids, usually with a blue dye. Figured i could make one of those myself, and on i went.

Pouring water and oil seemed to be the winning solutin, however had to be clear oil, so baby oil and water with blue food coloring. Preliminary tests on a cup prooved my physics right and flipped the challenge to a creative one. What to have in and how to assamble.

Initially the vessel was going to be a 3D print of a pirate benchy. But then i remember this idea to make a boat out of a wallnut shell (from this era: (like http://localhost:1313/lab/paper-boat/ and http://localhost:1313/lab/cork-raft/) Never did it because i figured i’d be super challenging to have a sail and making it float enough for a photo. But was perfect for this, so i printed the pirate benchy and comandeered the mast and sail for the wallnut.

Fixing it wasn’t too dificult, the next challenge was coming up with a plan for filling up the snowglobe, lots of oil and very little water, so again, did some proof of concept, came up with a few different plans to assamble the snowglobe leaving absolutely no air bubbles inside.

Plan went out the window within minutes of starting the manouver. The process wasn’t easy and was very slippery, but managed to do it. Wasn’t perfect, has a moderately sized air bubble, which can be fixed, but the reward does not overcome the level of effort.

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