Failure!!

The things most interesting had to be postponed - the nitrogen I got was far from liquid, so the superconductor-experiments couldn't be done for lack of cold.
Stupid story - the master-gas-vendor had no containers in stock to rent out, so I contacted a related sub-vendor who ignored every mention of "liquid" (in the email-order's subject and body, on the telephone, in person when i picked it up), and gave me the only kind they carry ... gaseous.

So we preponed the Martini-hour and had more time to try and grasp some theory.

Luckily there is prospect of borrowing the superconductors again at a later date, probably fall. But next time I'm going to "practice" getting liquid nitrogen ... I think about getting some to just "cook" some time this summer.

Link to photos on Flickr.

Super! Conductors!!

Alas I had forgotten my cell-phone at home, otherwise I would have first clips of floating magnets - but this way I was even more motivated to carry back with me the heavy magnetic circular track which was offered as an item of loan by my hero of the day Prof. Gerfried Hilscher from the solid-state physics dept. of TU Vienna, who is also supplying the super-conducting disc for the floating experiment. So on top of flying latex-bugs (see post below) we'll have our own little suspension railway next Wednesday!

... With Zeljko, WerkzeugH's chef, I already discussed what to do with the left over liquid nitrogen - we have something in mind like this.

Wed May 2nd / 6pm Workshop / 8pm Martini hour / WerkzeugH

When there's Laws of Physics - ...

... Why are there no Lawyers of Physics?
Maybe René Pfeiffer can fill in that position on Wednesday May 2nd - he will be visiting physics expert at TinkerTank's Mag(ic)netism edition. I was lucky enough to recruit him, facilitating the powers of the metalab mailing-list in my evil genius's scheme.

The brave young man who I was able to lure into the mad universe of TinkerTank is already preparing to explain floating magnets to clueless artists and discuss grave questions (on levitation) we might come up with over a Martini cocktail.

Hoping we can arrive at a favourable interpretation of Physic's Laws!

Wed May 2nd / 6pm Workshop / 8pm Martini hour / WerkzeugH

Magicnetism

TinkerTank at WerkzeugH
Wed 5/2/2007 6pm

Ladies and Gentlemen, don't expect too much - we're just tinkering a little with (electro-)magnets.
As a simple mind who can be endlessly fascinated by simple physical experiments that a guy named Faraday conducted some 300 years ago, I invite you to join me in conducting a few basic tricks before tinkering with some electro-magnets and looking at what those can do.

At TinkerTank the question "How is this stuff relevant artwise?" inevitably has to be adressed - in this case there is at least one easy answer: Visually. Peep at the video of Morpho Towers by Sachiko Kodama and Yasushi Miyajima in this post on SHIFZ-blog - an artwork created using ferrofluid and electromagnets.
But I imagine having one of my magnetic latex-bugs float above a superconductor will also deliver me an artistic kick. Even the simplest electric motor in the world might be used in a visually exciting sculpture ...

8pm Martini Hour
feat. philosophical reflection on recent claims of free energy applying magnetic effects and hopefully some historic reflection on the show-effect of magnetism through time.

WerkzeugH: Schönbrunnerstr. 61, 1050 Vienna

Next TinkerTank: May 2nd

Hosted by the hospitable WerkzeugH the tinkering will be all about magnets, including the electro kind - starting 6pm.

More details to be announced later on ...

TinkerTank Plans for 2007

After starting the tinkering year with as pleasurable a subject as Martinis, what fun thing will be next?

Well, later on this year, there will be a long-awaited hands-on experience with Chris Veigl's newly developed EEG- and body-signal analysis-equipment. Using OpenEEg hardware and Chris's BrainBay software we'll be trying out some artful applications of the technology.

Maybe the next thing to be tinkered with will be electro-magnets - this one has been on my mind for awhile and if nothing more urgent turns up in the weeks to come, that's what is going to happen towards end of April.

There are also some aspects of robotics I would like to focus attention onto, depending on the funds we're able to raise we might even see some interesting international guest-experts participating.

Martini-tinkering Video

A few sequences Expertina filmed with her camera, smacked together ... Click the pic to play the video.