Floating Plant Fountain
Inspired by optical behavior, I built this proof-of-concept “floating plant” fountain using a transparent tube
This concept was inspired by the optical trick of vanishing boundaries due to a similar refractive index, for example how glass “disappears” in oil. By raising a plant off of the ground via a transparent tube, and running water up the tube and over the sides in a semi-laminar flow, light passes through the structure in such a way that the edge of the tube is nearly hidden to our eyes. This makes the plant appear to float on a stream of water. This small-scale model was built using an acrylic straw, an aquarium pump, and fake plants. In the ideal case the tube would be made out of a polymer that has a similar refractive index to water so it would actually “disappear”, and the product would be scaled up to support much larger plants.
