How to Build a Tornado Machine🌪

Water, Fire, Earth and Air. These are the 4 fundamental elements of nature. To tame these elements means that you control the world and everything around you, giving you a power that has long been dreamt of. Today you will learn a secret technique passed down through generations where you will harness the power of Air and and control every single element known to man. Today you will Tame The 4 Elemental Tornados. Whoosh!!!

These are the supplies that you will need for this project:

• Cardboard Box - A full box with the dimensions (30 x 30 x 50)
• Cardboard Sheet - 1 piece of cardboard that is has the dimensions (40 x 30)
• 5V DC Fan - This can easily be recycled from an old portable fan.
• Black Acrylic Paint
• White Acrylic Paint
• Small Glass Bowl of Warm Water
• Dry Ice - This can be purchased at your local grocery store
• 4-Cell Battery Holder
• 4 AA Batteries
• Thin Clear Plastic Film. (35 x 35)
• LED Strip

These are the tools that you will need:

• Box cutter knife
• Sellotape / Clear Tape
• A pair of scissors
• A ruler
• A marker (felt-tip marker)
• A paint brush (40mm)
• A Glue Stick

In the following steps we will build the ancient apparatus that will help us control the elements. This container will house the tornados while they are spinning and prevent their ruthlessness from destroying any of your belongings.

If any of the images are blurry, you can download the images from here. Let's start building the Tornado Tamer!

(NB - Leave a 2cm gap between the base of the Cardboard Box and any cuts that are going to be done on the box).

Get the cardboard box ready and draw a line from the right side of the box with a width of 2cm and a height of 30cm. From that line draw another line with a width of 3cm and a height of 30cm. This should leave you with 2 lines, both with the same height but one with a width of 2cm from the right side of the box and the other with a width of 3cm from the first line. Repeat this process on all sides of the box.

Cut out the rectangle formed by the 2 lines drawn on the box. Repeat this on all sides of the box. Throughout the project, I will refer to these holes as the "Vents".

Choose the best looking side of the box that will be used as the viewing point of the tornado. Once you have chosen it draw a line from the left side of the box with a width of 2cm and a height of 30 cm. Next draw a line with a width of 1cm and a height of 30cm from the vent on the right side of the box. Once everything has been drawn, cut out the rectangle formed by the left line and the rightmost line. The size of the rectangle should be around (23cm x 30cm).

Next we need to paint the box so get your paint brushes and your acrylic paint ready. For this step you just need to paint all 4 inside walls of the box black and paint the inside base of the box white. Let the paint dry before proceeding to the next step.

Now we need to connect the dc fan to the battery holder. Attached to the battery holder is 1 red wire and 1 black wire and attached to the dc fan is 1 red wire and 1 black wire. Connect the red wires together and the black wires together. To connect them I wrapped 2 wire ends around each other and tied some electrical tape around each connection to prevent any short circuits.

Next we need to build the top cover of the box where the dc fan will sit. For this step get the (40cm x 30cm) sheet of cardboard and the paint ready. Cut off the 4 corners of the cardboard sheet. The squares to cut off each corner are (5cm x 5cm). Next make folds along the 30cm sides of the cardboard each with a width of 5cm, I'll refer to these as the "Cover Flaps". Once everything has been done paint the cardboard black.

Once the paint has dried measure the dimensions of the dc fan and cut a hole in the middle of the cover of that size. The dimensions of my dc fan were (10cm x 10cm). Make sure to cut the hole a little smaller than the size of the fan so that it just rests on top of if without falling in the box. The dimensions of the hole would then be (9cm x 9cm).

Most LED strips have an adhesive at the back which you can use to stick it to things, but if it does not use clear tape for this step. Stick the LED strip along the inside walls of the cardboard box, at the base of the box, and test to see that the LED lights work. You can run the power cable out of one of the vents to the power supply.

We're almost there. For this step we will cut the thin film of plastic to put on Tornado Tamer. We will be viewing the tornados through this point so make sure that there aren't any creases on the plastic. Cut the plastic film to the same dimensions as those of the viewing point, in our case around (23cm x 30cm). I recommend that you leave a little extra plastic, 1-2 cm, around the edges of the plastic film to play around with while trying to stick the plastic sheet on the box. To stick the plastic sheet to the box, I used some clear tape and stuck it on.

For this step we will connect the cover of the Tornado Tamer. Take the cover and apply glue to the 1 of the cover flaps . With the viewing point of the Tornado Tamer facing you glue this flap to the back of the box so that the cover flips open and you can put things inside, make sure that the painted side of the cover is facing the inside of the box. You can use clear tape to tape down the other flap to the front of the box once you have placed everything in the box an you are starting the experiment.

And that's it for the construction of the Tornado Tamer. Now let's head on to the fun part of the project where we create our Elemental Tornados.

Welcome, you have made it this far in our journey to tame the elements. You are very close to taming the Elemental Tornados and the last step is to hone your powers and unleash the tornados unto the world. These are the last few steps before you gain total control:

1. Remove the dry ice from its storage container and break it into smaller pieces if it is not already in pellet form. This increases the surface area of the dry ice which will lead to larger tornados.
2. Pour warm water into a glass bowl and place the dry ice into the bowl.
3. Now place the bowl into the Tornado Tamer, cover the box with its cover and place the fan on the cover. The final step is to turn on the fan with the fan sucking air out of the Tornado Tamer.

To change the element you want to control change the colour of the Led strip with its remote.

Now that you have learned this secret technique I hope that you use this power to spread joy and happiness. With great power comes great responsibility.

Thank you for viewing my Instructable. I really hope that you enjoyed it and attempt building the project yourself. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comment section. I'm looking forward to seeing your versions of this project.

See you soon!👋

Written by Iloke Alusala