Go with the Flow! Empowering hands-on individual fluid dynamics education

Traditional instruction on the fundamentals of fluid mechanics often includes laboratory exercises to provide physical demonstration of the connection between the abstract theoretical principles and the physical reality they are intended to model. Hands-on experiential exercises have a proven instructional method in fluid mechanics, but typically requires large and relatively expensive equipment that must be shared by teams of students for a short duration. With our current effort, we aim to create a handful of modular experiments that permit demonstration and exploration of the principles of fluid mechanics by individual students within their own home. This is enabled by inexpensive DC power supplies, motor controllers and high-power compact fan system available to remote control hobbists. We report on the development of the kits with six different topics of focus: i) hydrostatics & manometry, ii) control volume analysis of momentum flux, iii) drag on external objects, iv) pipe flow losses, v) boundary layer growth, separation and form drag, and vi) fan characteristics. Preliminary results of student feedback in working with the prototype kits will be summarized.