ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Rotating tank

Hey there kiddo! Did you know that there are these special tanks called rotating tanks? They're pretty cool! Imagine you have a bucket filled with water and you start to spin it around in circles. Wheeee! That's kind of what a rotating tank does, except it's way bigger and more scientific.

Basically, scientists use rotating tanks to study how things move in water, like waves and currents. They can make the tank spin really fast, like a spinning top, and then they can watch and measure what happens inside. The tank has a layer of water on the bottom and a layer of air on the top, like a big bottle, so that the water doesn't slosh around too much.

The scientists might put little plastic models of boats or submarines or even sea creatures in the tank and see how they move around. They can also add salt or dye to the water to see how it affects the way the water moves. And if they're really clever, they can use the data they get from the tank to help predict how the real ocean will behave in the future.

So there you have it, kiddo! A rotating tank is just a big spinning bucket of water that scientists use to learn about waves and currents in the ocean. Pretty cool, huh?