So, what do you think I should test? I made a short list, which is reasonably comprehensive, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything:
- hand drill vs. drill press (I might skip this because I think it's safe to assume that hand drills are bad, but it'd be interesting to know how bad they are.)
- removing lip vs. not removing lip
- drill speed (both rpm and how quickly the bit is pushed in)
- center vs. off-center
- curved vs. flat cap
- pre-drill (with small bit) vs. not (only for larger nozzles)
- # of passes with the drill bit (probably not important)
- effect of different materials (You can get caps in materials other than PVC. I don't expect this effect to be large but I am curious.)
- effect of laminators (including testing the effect of length, and possibly diameter of the straw)
(In terms of the best nozzles we could make, I think a CNC lathed nozzle like what you might get from this service would be best, but I'm not convinced that the improvement from using a custom made CNC lathed nozzle is more than 10% or so in range given our current knowledge of nozzle physics. I think we'd need a new technology to get more of a range increase from the nozzle alone.)