159 lines
6.8 KiB
Markdown
159 lines
6.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2016-10-22T03:43:38.000Z'
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title: Programmable Water (2003)
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url: http://www.blikstein.com/paulo/projects/project_water.html
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author: Phithagoras
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points: 42
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story_text:
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 15
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1477107818
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_Phithagoras
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- story_12767038
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objectID: '12767038'
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year: 2003
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---
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[Source](http://www.blikstein.com/paulo/projects/project_water.html "Permalink to Projects and Research: Education - Programmable Water")
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# Projects and Research: Education - Programmable Water
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| ----- |
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| [ ![][1]][2] | | [ ![][3]][4] | [ ![][5]][6] | [ ![][7]][8] | |
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| ![][9] | | | | | |
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| | | ![][10] | [ ![][11]][12] | [ ![][13]][14] | |
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| ![][15] | | | | |
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| ![][16] | ![][17]
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**_education**
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[ _media][18] |
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<[ back to all projects][19]
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Programmable Water
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_Computation is not just about electronics._
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[Photos by [Arnan Sipitakiat][20]]
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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:
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![][26]
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This a zoom-in of one of the modules:
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![][27]
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It works based on one very simple principle: there are two inputs of water on the top.
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| ----- |
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| 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. |
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| ![][28] | ![][29] | |
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| In other words, it's a XOR gate.
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| In other words, an AND gate.
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So, we have two Boolean operations in just one device: AND and XOR. So, that's a half-adder!
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![][30]
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But it was a long way to get there. My first trial looked like this:
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![][31]
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There was leakage all over, so I tried a new design:
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![][32]
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It worked better, but its size could not cope with the flow of water. However, the principle worked very well.
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![][33]![][34]![][35]
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This was the third trial, and it worked fine.
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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.
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![][36]
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![][37]
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![][38]![][34]![][39]
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[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]
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<[ back to all projects
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][19]
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| ![][34] |
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| ![][34] |
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[home][2] | [projects][19] | [courses][6] | [contact][8] | [webmaster][41]
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Copyright © 2003
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Designed by [Tatiana Chapira][42]
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| ![][34] | ![][34] | ![][34] | ![][34] | ![][34] | ![][34] |
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[1]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/paulo_int.gif
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[2]: http://www.blikstein.com/index.html
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[3]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/resume_int.gif
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[4]: http://www.blikstein.com/resume.html
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[5]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/education_int.gif
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[6]: http://www.blikstein.com/education.html
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[7]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/contact_int.gif
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[8]: http://www.blikstein.com/contact.html
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[9]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/linhahorizontal.gif
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[10]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/project_inton.gif
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[11]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/publication_int.gif
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[12]: http://www.blikstein.com/publication.html
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[13]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/photo_int.gif
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[14]: http://www.blikstein.com/photo.html
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[15]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/project_int.jpg
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[16]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/linhavertical.gif
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[17]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/project_tit.gif
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[18]: http://www.blikstein.com/media.html
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[19]: http://www.blikstein.com/project.html
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[20]: http://www.media.mit.edu/~arnans
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[21]: http://www.media.mit.edu
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[22]: http://www.blikstein.com/cidade/cidade_videos.html
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[23]: http://www.blikstein.com/paulo
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[24]: http://www.gogoboard.org
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[25]: http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo
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[26]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfabpauloandadder1.jpg
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[27]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfabbricktop.jpg
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[28]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfab4bitaddertopXOR.jpg
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[29]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfabbricktopAND.jpg
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[30]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfab4bitadderxorand.jpg
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[31]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfabfirstbrick.jpg
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[32]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfabsquarebrick.jpg
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[33]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfabtransparentbrick1.jpg
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[34]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/spacer.gif
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[35]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfabtransparentbrick2.jpg
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[36]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfab4bitadder2.jpg
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[37]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfab4bitaddertop.jpg
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[38]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfabpauloandadder2.jpg
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[39]: http://www.blikstein.com/images/mlfab4bitadder.jpg
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[40]: http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~paulo/courses/howmake/mlfabfinalproject.htm
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[41]: mailto:paulo%40blikstein.com
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[42]: mailto:%20designer%40tatichapira.com
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