So, yesterday I began seriously planning out a mini wave tank I’d like to build for an educational crash course. Wave tanks at museums are super cool, and as a tiny kid I always liked playing with the interactive water exhibits at children’s museums so I finally decided to make one myself. I don’t know exactly how large I want it to be, but I want to be able to carry it around in my backpack.
I really wanted to be able to make constructive and destructive interference, so I decided to have servo motors controlled by an Arduino at both ends of the tank. I also wanted to be able to show the difference between surface/wind waves and deep water waves (well, “deep” for my almost literally pint-sized tank).
I also really wanted to simulate shoaling, the nearshore phenomenon which leads to the characteristic breaking waves we see at beaches. This occurs because the bottom of waves begins hitting against the shallower shoreline, forcing the excess energy upwards; recall that water waves are simply a propagation of energy. I plan to make either removable weighted insert for the bottom of the tank in order to simulate this when desired, although I’m not sure whether I want to 3D print it or mill it.
That’s all for now—I’ll see you in the next update! 🙂
sleep fish. 
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