How I Got Into Whips Ten Years Ago
Hi guys! I was born and raised in northwest Indiana where I live to this day. I’ve always been interested in all-things science for my whole life, thanks to my dad who imparted his knowledge and passion for science on me at a very early age, and to my mom for always encouraged me in whatever I did; whether it was making tornadoes in a bottle with soap and water, or begging her to drive me out to the fields to look for dust devils. This business would not exist, and I would not have nearly the appreciation I do for the little things in life if it weren’t for them.
I became especially interested in the speed of sound at age 8 or so. It was around this time that my dad told me about the crack of a whip, and that it was actually breaking the speed of sound. I was very intrigued by the idea of being able to hold something in my hand that was going faster than sound.
Years later in middle school I became very interested in photography after playing with my parents’ little 2mp digital Kodak camera (big stuff back then!) which evolved through the years into a passion that I enjoy to this day. It was around 2010 that I re-visited my interest in breaking the speed of sound, but this time I was interested in capturing the crack of a whip with my camera. The idea was to set the camera to 1/8000 of a second to attempt to capture the distorted lightwaves that the shockwave creates at the moment of the crack. At this point I didn’t have a whip, nor did I know where to get one, so I took a drumstick, twine, and some duck tape and made my very first whip!
Ultimately the experiment failed, but it started me down the road of curiosity. I became scouring youtube for videos on whips and quickly found videos from Adam Winrich, which fulled my curiosity. Later I found a build on instructibles.com where I followed the instructions and made my first plaited nylon whip. After making 1, then, 2, then 3, and so on, I decided to sell one on Ebay. Shortly after, I created the youtube channel, and the rest is history.