Steve Spangler's Blog » cornstarch or oobleck

Spangler’s Cornstarch Walk on Water Featured on Discovery’s Time Warp

Steve — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:33:05 +0000

Time Warp is one of Discovery’s newest shows and it’s definitely worth watching… even if you’re not a science geek. Hosts Jeff Lieberman and Matt Kearney are on the prowl for anything and everything that might be cool to examine under high-speed photography. On the November 5, 2008 episode, Time Warp featured the Cornstarch Walk on Water stunt our team created for the Ellen Show back in February.

It’s good to see that our mixing proportions of 2,500 pounds of cornstarch to about 200 gallons of water - all mixed in a cement truck - worked well for them, too. The best part of the segment was the slow motion photography showing just how the non-Newtonian cornstarch and water mixtures behaves under stress. The images are nothing short of amazing.

Here are our behind the scenes images of how to prepare the mixture - cement truck and all - at the Ellen Show and an inside look at just how messy the process really is. But it’s worth it!

Want to try it on a smaller scale? Learn how to make a backyard version of the Cornstarch Walk on Water.

Cornstarch Walk on Water Stunt - Get a Cement Truck

Steve — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:35:36 +0000

Mixing 2,500 pounds of cornstarch with the kitchen mixer just didn’t work, so we had to find a cement truck… and a very cool cement truck mixing guy. Oh, and you also need three people who know exactly what the cornstarch mixer should feel like when it’s perfectly mixed. Jeff, Carly and Renee served as the mixologists while I called the producer at the Ellen Show to let him know that we were ready to roll to the studio.

Watch the Cornstarch Water Walk Video

Cornstarch Walk on Water - Get a Really Big Bathtub

Steve — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:26:17 +0000

The final step is to drive the cement truck filled with 2,500 pounds of cornstarch and 250 gallons of water to the back lot at the Ellen Show and pour the goo into a giant bathtub - 7 feet long, 3 feet wide and 2 feet deep. It’s also a good idea to have your oobleck mixing experts change their clothes and spend the next 4 hours mixing the goo by hand to ensure the perfect consistency right before the tub gets moved on stage. How do you move a tub that weighs about 6,000 pounds? Using a forklift, of course.

It’s also a good idea to find someone in the audience who you’ve never met and trust that you won’t let them sink into a pit of cornstarch goo. Watch the Cornstarch Water Walk Video View more photos at The Science Behind the Goo - Photos from the Ellen Show