There we are, hopefully scrolling YouTube, when we see a precious Raspberry Pi submerged in a fish tank full of water, wires and all. At first, we couldn’t understand why Rasim Muratovic (aka Rasmurtech) would drown one of our precious tiny baby boards, but we watched the video and discovered he might actually be onto something. So: can a Raspberry Pi swim?
On closer inspection, we learnt that this Raspberry Pi wasn’t trying to go for a swim in water, but in mineral oil. It also seemed not to be drowning at all, but rather doing pretty well under the circumstances. The thing about mineral oil is that while it looks just like water at a glance, it isn’t electrically conductive. This makes it fun to play with.
The keyboard, power, and Ethernet cables are all plugged into the board, which is also connected to a monitor. When Rasim connected the power cable to a power source, the submerged Raspberry Pi’s LED successfully flashed green and it starting booting, as shown on the monitor. Rasim went on to log in using his keyboard and mouse, and loaded a graphical user interface. Just like you’d do with any ordinary Raspberry Pi that isn’t immersed in a tub of liquid.
Rasim didn’t get round to testing the internet connection in this first saturated session, so stay tuned to Rasmurtech to see how deep he makes this Raspberry Pi dive.
Disclaimer: we’re all (mostly) sensible grown-ups here but I should remind you that watery substances of any kind do not play well with electronics and you definitely shouldn’t mess around mindlessly. Like I said, Rasim’s clear liquid here is mineral oil, and that matters a lot.
More Raspberry Pi projects at depth
This isn’t the first time we’ve seen our tiny computers working swimmingly below the surface, or floating merrily on it. We also ride on turtle backs to monitor conservation areas and keep an eye on freshwater fishes in Canada. And don’t start me off on how many there are on boats of varying sizes all over the world.
