An Evening in the Splash Lab

Entering the Splash Lab...or "Stlash Lab"

 Last week we met up with some of our old  friends from BHS days. Our friend Tadd is the creator of the Splash Lab at BYU, and after getting together for the first time in years last spring, we all decided we would meet there next.

True to his personality, Tadd has fashioned the perfect career for himself in the Department of Engineering at BYU. He and a group of his grad students come up with cool stuff to photograph at extreme high speed (one of his cameras alone cost about as mush as a house...and takes like 1 million frames PER SECOND), and then study the dynamics. While the things they discover are undoubtedly useful in the real world (like how to engineer better toilets for reducing splash back :), or better designs for the Department of Defense), I am convinced that people (including all of their corporate sponsors) really just love Tadd. Everyone does. He's just one of those people. He's made a bit of a name for himself and his lab with his videos featured on NPR - Science Friday, BBC, CNN, NBC, local new outlets...and who knows what-all. Like I said, he's just one of those people that other people want to be around, because there's always sure to be something fun going on. Julie, his wife/my second cousin, says she just wishes he got paid according to his popularity. ha ha  ha ha. Don't we all, Julie... ha ha ha...

We took Noble, because we had a suspicion that Noble would find a kindred spirit in Tadd. I think we were correct in our hunch.

Old friends, Jenn and Ang.  Capturing the magic.

After one of our first experiments, watching the instant replay. Look at the joy on Noble's face!

Mike telling a story to the crowd while Tadd sets up for the shot.

Dry ice in water

Tadd had messaged everyone ahead of time about bringing in things they wanted to see filmed at high speed. I couldn't think of anything, but luckily my friend Jenn came through for us, bringing in a bag of fire crackers and a GI Joe guy. Tadd also had Julie bring in some dry ice. After that it was just up to our imaginations to determine what crazy stunts we would try.

Josh on bubble blowing duty with the dry ice, Tadd describing the change in light refraction to us.

We filmed bubbles popping, and Tadd explained the strange way that light refracts and then is absorbed right before it pops. We filmed dry ice in water, a fire cracker exploding, then we filmed a fire cracker exploding in water (thanks to Jenn's husband, Josh for engineering that tricky feat). The pinnacle moment of the evening came when we pulled out all the stops, strapped a couple of fire crackers to the GI Joe, lit the fuse and then dropped him in water. We thought for a moment that the fuse had been extinguished in the water, but then "BOOM!" The entire beaker of water exploded, reminiscent of the crazy story Tadd had just finished telling us about the time he had accidentally blown up a 100 gallon tank of water on the upper floors of a building at MIT where he had been doing research, and flooded the floors below. Glad I wasn't there for that one. ha ha ha.
After the dust settled in the Splash Lab, Tadd's first response was to turn to Noble who was holding the camera trigger and yell, "Did you get it?!" And as soon as Noble replied that he had, Tadd let out a triumphant, "YES!"

Duck and cover, waiting for the fire cracker to blow.

GI Joe survived without a scratch (Clark's kids got to take him home as a souvenir), and the footage was incredible! We watched it again and again, and then couldn't stop laughing and talking about how awesome it all was as we wiped up the water and shards of glass. (Sorry again Tadd about the beaker...)

Clark, Noble and Mike poised for the explosion.

The video file was way too big to put on a jump drive to bring home, so Tadd said he'd put it up on the website. I'll share that when it's up. In the meantime... this will give you an idea of how much fun we had.

We capped off our fun in the lab by using physics to break glass bottles with the palm of our hands (Or a rubber mallet if you weren't tough enough...which was everyone except Tadd who has had a lot of practice. You should have seen the look of disgust he gave me after I gave my bottle a dainty tap. ha ha ha ha. I was afraid it would hurt.). Tadd explained how cavitation works to break the bottle.

Here we are posing after the fun. As I pulled this photo up in my email (from Josh's phone)  I noticed that it shows some of the ceiling tiles Tadd told us that he managed to pull out before, in his words, "I was caught" in an impulsive effort to redecorate the Splash Lab. Yet ANOTHER hilarious story.

After all the science fun, we drove over to Mountain West Burrito for dinner. Julie had to leave to get home to a sick child, and we wish that Clark's wife, Juli (another high school friend) could have been there, along with several others. But we had an unforgettable time. At dinner we laughed till we cried. I miss that. I love these guys. 

On the way home Noble was delighted to hear that he is related distantly, by marriage (Juli = my second cousin on my mom's side) to Tadd, his new hero. 

Out of the quiet in the back seat he said, "Can we do that again.....ALL THE TIME?" 

Mike and I smiled to ourselves. That was cool.