I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.

More sand

Colored sand?

Not so colored sand

Sand with a calibration plate (CD + paper + cup)

Okay so people I guess didn't believe me when I said we built this for $50 + (plus a cheap dell projector we had laying around)

Things we had: Dell projector (very cheap), spare wood, laptop with nvidia card (requried for liquid simulation), old laptop power supply (need 12v 2A min)

Things we bought: xbox 360 Kinect (used from gameshop for like $25), sand from homedepot

If you screw up and kill your computer it is on you.
First we did this: http://www.instructables.com/id/Wiring-an-Xbox-Kinect-for-USB/?ALLSTEPS

Second we did this: http://lakeviz.org/forums/topic/complete-installation-instructions/

It took a single afternoon. Kind of thrown together but works perfectly. If you try to make one, the box width should be between 30" and 40" and the kinect height above sand should be equal to the box width.