My concept at this time was a bowl, which one could fill with water to enable the lighting in the room. This conscious action of switching the light on would be ideally causing people to think more about the (extraordinary) things which have become too normal. (i.e. switching on the light, getting water from the tap). In a coach meeting we discussed the possibilities to think of a very functional feature for the concept, not only being playful. When I started to think about this, I though of the possibility to be able to control the light with the same bowl. This is exactly what I included in the midterm.
The midterm provided me with a challenge, how was I supposed to control the lighting in the room? Of course, I did not do this, but I did figure out a way to dim the light in the bowl itself. This also gives the entire object a mysterious look. Considering the little time I had left I choose look for a solution which allowed me to control some LED's with a potentiometer. The Arduino Libraries already have a standard code for this, so all I had to do is connecting and soldering the different parts. Some pictures of my creation here:
I explored the possibilities to get a good mixture to diffuse the light properly. The mixtures I used are water with milk, water with Brinta (porridge) and plain water. As you can see in the pictures below, the milk and water provides the nicest mystery and diffuses the best. I also experimented with a see-through bowl and a sandblasted one. In combination with the see-through bowl. this gave a really nice picture.
The midterm itself is was okay, I did not get too much feedback which I could really use. I have the following list to look into. This is exactly where I started after the SDL weeks.
I first made a list in the program OneNote. Mariette mentioned this program, as Word was not doing what I wanted it to do. It gave me an easy way to paste text for conducting research and writing/drawing next to it (with a tablet).
The list of feedback I wrote down was:
- Working with the properties of water (i.e. the turbulence of water is connected to the turbulence in the room.
- Look at magnetic fluids
- Look at the amount of water which needs to be poured into the bowl. How much does it need to be?
I wanted to explore new options, so I started to look at the magnetic fluids. How does it work, how well can they be influenced, how toxic are they? This turned into a really nice exploration I think, I have written down the references, looked/read them, looked at the theory and looked at options which lay close to it. The latter are combining sound with water and looking at non-Newtonian fluids. These are a mixture of Maizena (cornstarch) and water. If they have been mixed in the right ratio they are liquid when left alone, but solid when pounded on with a particular force.
In the end, the OneNote document looked like you can see on the picture above, also with more details on the non-Newtonian fluids as well as the sound plus water underneath the ferrofluid (which can be seen there).
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