Wave Interactions

How do waves interact in a tub of water with:
no barriers
one barrier
two barriers
Picture of sketches:

The above is a picture of the sketches I drew of what happened with no barriers, with one barrier, and with two barriers. Lilla and I tried a series of different tests for each one. As illustrated above, With no barrier the waves interacted with each other very well. With one source of energy, the waves moved one direction. We weren't sure what would happen when we tried with two sources of energy, but the waves didn't interfere with each other at all. I think that this is because there was enough room in the medium (the water) for the waves to go their separate ways without bouncing off of each other. With one barrier it was a bit more difficult and a bit more interesting. We tried encompassing the source of energy in a corner of the tray, and it was very intriguing to see how the waves only followed out on that one side where there was a tiny space. When the wave bended, it was called diffraction. In short, the barrier was a barrier. The waves couldn't go through it or under it. We also tried with one barrier in the middle of the tray and the source of energy very close to it. The outcome was that the waves avoided the whole middle section behind the barrier and opted out for the sides - another example of diffraction. With two barriers, the most interesting one that we tried was the third one. we tried to create a sort of maze for the waves to go through, and, surprisingly, it worked! The waves navigated through the two barriers very well but they didn't reach the "finish line", because the second barrier blocked it. The wave bounced off in an angle of reflection, but it looked like it was a standing wave because the two waves coming in different directions interacted like that.