Drinking bird toy

The famous Drinking bird toy is based on thermodynamic principles.
Drinking bird I built is based on capillary action as well as siphoning.
Before we go into details, Let us briefly discuss the concepts I have used in this activity.
Let me take these two empty glass bottles.
I will fill one bottle with water.
There r different ways by which I can transfer water from this glass.
I can use my hand
OR
I can use this hollow plastic sleeve to siphon the water out of the glass filled with water into an empty glass.
OR
I can use this thick cotton thread and transfer water between bottles. We will add some blue ink so that water movement can be clearly seen. This is due to a phenomenon known as capillary action. In fact, the word capillary means “hairlike.” This mode of water transfer is very very slow compared to siphoning mode.
I used siphoning and capillary action mode to transfer water.
Critical part of releasing water after a periodic interval is due to auto-siphoning.
Let me show you how.
We will take this ball pen which has an empty refill. Lets cut the tip.
Let us make a small hole with a hot rod at the bottom of this plastic container.
Refill fits very tightly in this hole. Now we will close the pen body from one end and place it on the refill from inside.
If I pour the water in the container, water drains out as soon as it reaches level above the ball pen. You can try this at home and understand how it works yourself.
Let me show you the initial arrangement.
I have used everyday material like bend straw, sketchpens, eraser and plastic bottle.
Bend straw acts as an auto-siphoning pipe and drains water in the plastic container.
Sketch pen holds all parts together.
Water received is stored temporarily in this plastic container. Let us attach it to the sketch pen. We can move it to adjust the balance.
Needle acts as a pivot for the setup.
We will mount it on a wooden block and another sketch pen.
When the sketch pen tilts on the right side due to difference in weight
Eraser is used as a counterweight and keeps the setup well balanced.
Plastic bottle as well as eraser can be moved to adjust the balance
Thin wire sleeve along with MS Wire is used to siphon out water from the source. MS Wire keeps the wire in place.
Let us pour some water in the glass.
This wire sleeve is used to siphon out water from the glass container.
We will gently place this end of the sleeve inside the sketch pen.
Plastic container at the other end collects the water siphoned out by the container.
This is how water accumulates slowly in the plastic container.
As more and more water pours in, the right side of the balance becomes heavier.
It rises above the water source, till the point water drains out.
Arrangement tilts in the container at this point and the process repeats.
Now that our setup is tested, we can decorate it with a picture of a bird.
Remove the sleeve and replace it with thick cotton thread.
This time water accumulates in the plastic container due to capillary action.
This process takes a very long time though.
It was fun to build the drinking bird mechanism. Sharing some tinkering moments.
Have a nice time. Thank You.