Build Your Own Tornado Machine

tornado machine

This looks like a pretty cool toy to build. At the top of the cylinder is a fan that removes air from the center column of the device creating a low pressure zone. This air is then blown back into the cylinder to feed the rotation. Besides the regular construction supplies you’ll need a squirrel cage fan and speed control. The most expensive part of this project is the mist generator. The nice thing is, you can construct the entire device and make sure it’s functioning before you dump money into the mister. I saw a really large one of these last year at NCAR in Boulder, CO. It was pretty cool, but naturally I was there to see the Cray-1A [via]. Lately we’ve been creating our own path of destruction so we’re hosting the pdf which was originally found at weather-photography.com.

[thanks seesoe]

16 thoughts on “Build Your Own Tornado Machine

  1. I remember seeing something like this at the Natural science museum in Philly… Theirs looked like it was using smoke instead of mist. I’m wondering if you could make one of these with a cheap (hopefully used and cheap) smoke machine…

  2. seems like this would add a good amount of moisture to the air. This for long periods of time cant be good. Also a smoke generator would probably work but would also begin to smell after time. Interesting project.

  3. I built one of these for my middle school science fair. I just used a bunch of incents at the bottom though… they smoke a lot, are cheap, and makes the area around you smell good! Won “Best Visual”. Pretty cool back in 7th grade.

  4. matty d, the problem with smoke machines is that they use relatively expensive special fluid to operate. besides, they have a similar large smoke machine at my local science museum (the science museum of minnesota), and as far as i can tell it used a mister.

    elliott, the same goes for dry ice. dry ice is actually quite expensive if you plan on operating this thing for any substantial amount of time. furthermore, it is constantly vaporizing and so you only have so long to use it after you buy it.

    with a mister, all you ever need is water after buying it for unlimited operation.

  5. yeah, I saw a sweet one of these at the Orlando science center; it was open on two sides, about seven feet tall, and definitely used a mister of some sort…my hand was very wet when I pulled it out. I could have probably walked through it. It was right next to the earthquake simulator. Fog machines aren’t that expensive to keep filled, but they do often take a break, the funnel could run for a couple of minutes and rest for a couple. I got a fog machine once after Halloween for $20, and a pint of fluid cost something like $8 (I have only bought one).

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