A National Taiwan University team of students pose with their project. CNA photo April 2, 2025
Taipei, April 3 (CNA) A slinky-inspired fluid dynamics experiment proposed by students from National Taiwan University (NTU) will be carried into space by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) between late 2025 and early 2026.
The NTU student project, "The Liquid Waltz: Observing Fluid Dynamics in a Dancing Slinky," was one of 11 themes selected in the final round of the Asian Try Zero G 2025 (ATZ-G 2025) mission organized by the JAXA, according to a news statement issued by the Japanese national space agency on March 24.
Having received 500 proposals in the first round from student in nine Asia-Pacific countries, ATZ-G 2025 seeks "experiments that enable visual confirmation of physical phenomena," to be conducted by a Japanese astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) sometime between the second half of 2025 and early 2026, JAXA said.
Chen Wen-ching (陳文慶), a member of the five-person NTU student team calling themselves the "Slinky Ninjas," told reporters at a Wednesday news conference that the forces used to control liquids on Earth do not necessarily apply in space.
To explore the difference, the team came up with the idea of using a slinky and a water pouch to observe how liquid moves when poured into a spring-like structure in a weightless environment, aiming to see whether surface tension and Laplace pressure can create an "invisible force" to stabilize the liquid inside the coils, Chen said.
A National Taiwan University team of students pose with slinkies, which inspired their project. CNA photo April 2, 2025
He noted that preliminary experiments showed surface tension can confine liquid within a slinky-like spiral structure at small scales, whereas at larger scales, such as that of a full-sized slinky, gravity causes the liquid to escape through the gaps.
The team hopes that in the microgravity environment of the ISS, when the slinky is stretched, twisted, or bent, the liquid will continue to flow seamlessly within it, Chen added.
When those movements occur during each stretch of the experiment, "an astronaut holding both ends of the slinky is like performing a waltz in space," he said, explaining the inspiration behind the project's name.
The team envisions future applications of the fluid control technology in industries such as semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and even space colonization, according to Chen.
Chiang Ya-yu (蔣雅郁), an associate professor at NTU's Department of Mechanical Engineering who leads the team, said the project ranked first among the 67 proposals submitted across Taiwan and went on to represent the country in the final stage of ATZ-G 2025, which evaluated the technical feasibility of 27 shortlisted themes.
Chiang said that the NTU project received high praise from the astronauts involved in the selection process, including Satoshi Furukawa, who conducted the selected experiments in the previous edition of ATZ-G aboard the ISS in 2023.
ATZ-G was first launched in 2011, with ATZ-G 2025 marking the ninth edition of the event, joined by 1,176 students from nine countries including Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and Australia.