The challenge to find a suitable draw-card for the forth coming Careers Expo was met when it was decided to create a working computer immersed in a fish tank. Much useful information was to be found on the Internet and the students in my A+ class enthusiastically helped to build the project.

It soon became obvious that some type of oil that is non-conductive was requited to fill the tank; a practical application of this is used in the computers onboard ROVs (Remotely Operated Vehicles) that are used for deep sea salvage and maintenance of under-sea cables. The extreme pressures at great depths would crush an air filled computer case – so they are filled with oil.

Liquid paraffin (Mineral Oil) was used to fill the tank into which a power supply and Pentium motherboard – mounted on a sheet of Perspex - had been installed. The fish tank has a small box in the lid so we decided that an external USB hard drive would work best as it could be concealed in the box. I have still to establish whether a hard drive will work immersed in oil – watch this space.

This raised a, not at first apparent, problem; Windows XP doesn’t support installation on an external USB drive - and how this problem can be overcome will be the subject of my next blog. The clip shows some of the stages of assembly and the completed Fish Tank - which turned out to be a smash hit at the Expo.