--- created_at: '2016-10-22T03:43:38.000Z' title: Programmable Water (2003) url: http://www.blikstein.com/paulo/projects/project_water.html author: Phithagoras points: 42 story_text: comment_text: num_comments: 15 story_id: story_title: story_url: parent_id: created_at_i: 1477107818 _tags: - story - author_Phithagoras - story_12767038 objectID: '12767038' year: 2003 --- [Source](http://www.blikstein.com/paulo/projects/project_water.html "Permalink to Projects and Research: Education - Programmable Water") # Projects and Research: Education - Programmable Water | ----- | | [ ![][1]][2] | | [ ![][3]][4] | [ ![][5]][6] | [ ![][7]][8] | | | ![][9] | | | | | | | | | ![][10] | [ ![][11]][12] | [ ![][13]][14] | | | | ![][15] | | | | | | ![][16] | ![][17] **_education** [ _media][18] | | <[ back to all projects][19] Programmable Water _Computation is not just about electronics._ [Photos by [Arnan Sipitakiat][20]] This was my final project for the "How to make (almost) anything" class at the [MIT Media Lab][21], when I was a first-year MSc. student. As my field of research is technologies for learning, I am interested in ways to make the opaque transparent, to make people understand what is "under-the-hood". Computers are everywhere, but we hardly know how they work. So this was the motivation for this project (if you are interested in this topic, I also wrote and directed a documentary on how microchips and computers work - have a look [here][18] and email me if you want a copy). If you are interested in education and new technologies, please check out these [cool videos][22], other projects on my [website][23], the [Gogo Board][24] website, or the [NetLogo][25] website. The idea of the project was to build a device that could do computation without electrons (well, not considering the electrons in water itself). Water was a interesting choice, in fact, _Fluidics _is a very important field of study that is widely used in aerospace or mission-critical applications, where electronic control devices don't offer the needed reliability or cannot support the environment. Also, Fluidics has been use in military equipment in order to prevent malfunction in a nuclear war, when electric devices cease to work. However, the idea was not to send people to space or to control missiles, but rather make a device that could help people build computation with their own hands, demystifing the computer. To do computation, a great thing to have are obviously boolean operations: but how to implement them with water? After many hours of research on binary logic, a lot of sketching and unsuccessful attempts, I decided to try this to use the laser cutter and build something with multiple layers. A simple logic gate looks simple on paper, but water is a messy media to work with... The final assembled adder looked like this: ![][26] This a zoom-in of one of the modules: ![][27] It works based on one very simple principle: there are two inputs of water on the top. | ----- | | When just one of them is "on"... | When both are "on", the two jets collide, going vertically down to the "U" piece, that collects the water. | | ![][28] | ![][29] | | | In other words, it's a XOR gate. | In other words, an AND gate. | So, we have two Boolean operations in just one device: AND and XOR. So, that's a half-adder! ![][30] But it was a long way to get there. My first trial looked like this: ![][31] There was leakage all over, so I tried a new design: ![][32] It worked better, but its size could not cope with the flow of water. However, the principle worked very well. ![][33]![][34]![][35] This was the third trial, and it worked fine. Then I fabricated many of them, using the laser cutter and acrylic of various colors. I glued a Lego piece under the device, so that it would be easier to assemble small "computers". This is how the 4-bit adder looked like, after many (I mean, many!) hours of wet work. If you think programming a computer is hard, just imagine what it would be if your bits were leaking all over the place. ![][36] ![][37] ![][38]![][34]![][39] [Just a quick note: I'm well aware that there has been tons of research on Fluidics. But this was just a class project, and it was never published, so that's why you will see no references. This is an [old version][40] of this page] <[ back to all projects ][19] | ![][34] | | ![][34] | | [home][2] | [projects][19] | [courses][6] | [contact][8] | [webmaster][41] Copyright © 2003 Designed by [Tatiana Chapira][42] | | ![][34] | ![][34] | ![][34] | ![][34] | ![][34] | ![][34] | [1]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/paulo_int.gif [2]: http://www.blikstein.com/index.html [3]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/resume_int.gif [4]: http://www.blikstein.com/resume.html [5]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/education_int.gif [6]: http://www.blikstein.com/education.html [7]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/contact_int.gif [8]: http://www.blikstein.com/contact.html [9]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/linhahorizontal.gif [10]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/project_inton.gif [11]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/publication_int.gif [12]: http://www.blikstein.com/publication.html [13]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/photo_int.gif [14]: http://www.blikstein.com/photo.html [15]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/project_int.jpg [16]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/linhavertical.gif [17]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/project_tit.gif [18]: http://www.blikstein.com/media.html [19]: http://www.blikstein.com/project.html [20]: http://www.media.mit.edu/~arnans [21]: http://www.media.mit.edu [22]: http://www.blikstein.com/cidade/cidade_videos.html [23]: http://www.blikstein.com/paulo [24]: http://www.gogoboard.org [25]: http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo [26]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfabpauloandadder1.jpg [27]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfabbricktop.jpg [28]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfab4bitaddertopXOR.jpg [29]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfabbricktopAND.jpg [30]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfab4bitadderxorand.jpg [31]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfabfirstbrick.jpg [32]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfabsquarebrick.jpg [33]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfabtransparentbrick1.jpg [34]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/spacer.gif [35]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfabtransparentbrick2.jpg [36]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfab4bitadder2.jpg [37]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfab4bitaddertop.jpg [38]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfabpauloandadder2.jpg [39]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfab4bitadder.jpg [40]: http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~paulo/courses/howmake/mlfabfinalproject.htm [41]: mailto:paulo%40blikstein.com [42]: mailto:%20designer%40tatichapira.com