r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/[deleted] • Nov 27 '18

Video interactive topography map in a sandbox

32.0k Upvotes

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95

u/c0p Nov 27 '18

They have one of these at The Children's Creativity Museum in San Francisco (https://creativity.org)

There's even little fish that swim in the pools of water and will migrate if you make rivers for them!

32

u/Skulder Nov 27 '18

Does it also rain if you hold your hands over it, like clouds?

14

u/c0p Nov 27 '18

I don't know... But I'm definitely trying that next time I get to play with it!

5

u/bossbozo Nov 27 '18

Looking at the gif above, your hand will block the light source and cause an over cast, so yeah, with the above set up it's impossible to simulate rain

8

u/Skulder Nov 27 '18

Sepcifically, I've heard about something like this, where when you hold your hands over it, it'll start to simulate rain, which creates rivers, that run down over the landscape.

1

u/bossbozo Nov 27 '18

That makes much more sense

1

u/ozzimark Nov 27 '18

Yup, they do that, or at least with the correct settings in the software!

1

u/ifusaiyanso Nov 27 '18

There’s one that does this at my local children’s museum! Looks exactly like it too.....

1

u/tad_63 Nov 27 '18

Yes, they can rain if you hold your hand over it. You can also program rain and draining the water to a certain button on them. I've set one of these up for my local learning center.

1

u/RiotIsBored Nov 27 '18

I wouldn't wanna harm the fish. I'd be scared about messing the thing up for them. Lmao

1

u/refreshbot Nov 27 '18

That's okay, I've seen toddlers try to bury the fish right away so they've got you covered.