Thebas experiment during the spanish soyuz mission cervantes

The educational experiment THEBAS, performed during the Cervantes Mission, was focused on illustrating the principles of dynamics ranging from the classic mechanics of solid bodies to the continuous media mechanics. The objective was to prepare a video for educational purposes. In this article the experimental setup used to perform the experiment is described. It consisted of transparent closed containers (having the same size and total mass) filled with solid spheres of different radii that were periodically oscillated in one dimension. The article also describes the experiment procedures and the technical problems encountered which caused that the experiment did not to work as expected.