The practices of visualisation and optical technologies allow us to direct our sight, to augment our perception of the visual work, and to make the invisible tangible. This module offers students a range of experimental approaches to the production of the visual and sonic media.
Realtime Project - Ferroseismic
Today was the first time in a long time everything has actually gone right!
Firstly we managed to get some new glass vials, that are a lot deeper, meaning that the ferrofluid never touches the surface of the water, and you are able to see the reaction of the ferrofluid with the magnets a lot clearer.
So now that we had everything working, it was time to start filming. We filmed the project working so that we had some evidence to show during our presentation, incase (heaven forbid) something happened to our project between now and Tuesday. The end result of the video i thought was very impressive and I’m looking forward to seeing peoples reactions towards our project!
As the project is now over I guess this would be a good a time as any to mention what we would change about this project given another chance to do it…
1) Use a Motor Shield
With a a motor shield we would have been able to control the motors with a higher degree of accuracy, and would have spent about 100% less on batteries. Which is ironic as we thought by not using the motor shield would save money!?
2) Use a Saw
When it came to cutting the acrylic for the project housing, we had to use a stanley knife and brute strength as mentioned in previous posts, but this didn’t have the most professional finish to it. So given another chance we would like to use the Brunnel labs and some power tools!!
3) Use reactive Ferrofluid
The Ferrofluid we have reacts brilliantly to the magnets, but the sample of Ferrofluid we had at the beginning (from Lee Nutbean), that initially sparked our interest in using Ferrofluid in the project was about 50% more reactive than ours. So given the chance we’d like to use more reactive Ferrofluid.
But despite all problems, I’m am infinetley happy with out results and cannot wait to present this project to Hannah on Tuesday.
P.S. Special Thanks must go out to:
Pete Smithers for providing the glassware.
Jon Sigworth for giving us permission to use his track in our presentation video.
Hannah Drayson for continued advice and support.
&
Lee Nutbean for introducing us to Ferrofluid earlier in the year.
