Hey guys. I'm new to this but I'm gonna take a shot at the contest anyway. This will be a project on how to make a sand tornado machine in you own home. This is a relatively simple project and doesn't require that much work.
Also note*
Always read the entire instructable before attempting to do it because you might miss important details which will make you regret things.

Supplies

Low speed dc fan(around 9-12v input should be good)(also make sure that the fan is big enough to sit on top of the glass vase mentioned later, about 10cm wide should be good), 9v battery holder (with switch), hot glue, soldering iron, solder , heat shrink tubing, a couple of bottle caps, water stirrer (anything that you could use as a stirrer for the water.I used a plastic gear salvaged from a broken correction tape dispenser, extra wire (just in case), fine but not too fine sand, and most importantly a tall cylindrical glass vase about 30cm-35cm tall and about 10 cm wide.
You can get most of these things at the hardware store, the others can be bought online.You could even go around your house, salvaging for things that are broken or not needed.

Step 1: Making the Rotor

First, cut the heat shrink tubing into two pieces about an inch long and slide it over the red and black fan wires before soldering.(If you are a defenseless child, please have your parents do this part)Plug in your solder gun and let it heat up. Once it’s heated up, solder the red battery holder wire to the red fan wire then solder the black fan wire to the black battery holder wire.If you think your wires aren’t long enough, just solder the extra wires onto the fan wires, then solder the other end of the extra wire to the battery holder wires.
Once you’re done, slide the heat shrink tubes that you put in earlier over the soldered parts of the wire and use heat to shrink the tubes(you can use fire but make sure you don't make the wire gets too close or it might get damaged. Once the circuit is done, you can put a nine volt battery to see if it works and flip on the switch

Step 2: Assembling the Water Stirrer

Heat up your hot glue gun.(with parental guidance If you are a small child) Then glue your bottle caps on top of each other until its about 1.5 inches long or about 3.7 cm long. Then glue it onto the middle of the rotating part of the fan. Then glue your water stirrer onto the bottle caps. Let it cool down and your rotor should look like a reverse blender once you set the fan over the glass vase. Make sure that when you fill the vase up with water, the stirrer will be submerged in the water by at least a cm.

Step 3: Setting Up

Get your sand and wash it to get rid of the fine dust that might make the water cloudy. Then, put it into the glass vase and make a layer 2cm or an inch thick.
Fill up the glass with water up to the submerging point of the stirrer and turn it on.
Then, watch as the sand tornado forms before your eyes.

Step 4: Finished!

Feel free to add your own modifications.
If you are a tech savvy person you could even solder a dc speed controller to the fan.

The v.1.0 of my machine: https://youtu.be/hT_F5VElbV4
V.2.0.: https://youtu.be/lDuPSwicCpA

*Please watch these to get an idea of what you will be building* P.S. if the links don’t work, just copy and paste it into the searchbar.

If you liked it please vote for it in the competition if it is to be accepted.
Also, please excuse the bad writing and format, this is my first instructable and I’m a bit rusty at this type of thing.
I hope you guys enjoyed this