#windtube

[rie-k-photo]

Wind Tube, Fog and Hills by Jaykhuang https://flic.kr/p/2db7QGw

[makerkenny-blog]

With this Makerspace we saw an opportunity to build off of our previous Makerspace program Aerial Antics. Aerial Antics was a program where guests made flying hovercrafts and tested them out in our wind tubes. We challenged guests to keep their hovercrafts flying within our wind tubes as long as possible.

This week we decided to take our challenge to the next level by adding LEDs and creating light paintings. We were inspired by some of the artbot and wind tube innovations we had seen at other museums. So we thought it would be cool to combine them by innovating artbots in the air!

Guests were invited to build, test, and iterate their flying objects at our inside air tube. Visitors then added LEDs to make their flying objects unique and iterated their designs. After plenty of fantastic failures and innovative redesigns, guests went outside The Tech Studio to make light paintings with their UFOs in the darkness of The Tech Atrium.

In The Tech Atrium guests placed their LED covered hovercrafts into our wind tube and let them fly. As visitors' UFOs were hovering, we took long-exposure photographs. These long-exposure photographs created beautiful and rich light paintings and revealed the hovercrafts' flight paths! Visitors were amazed by the light paintings their UFOs made, and so were we!

Many guests made alterations to their UFOs to change their craft's light painting. Some added extra propellers, tails, lights, and more. 

Many guests also named their hovercrafts. Our personal favorite was Sparkly Sunshine! This past week of Makerspace made us feel like Sparkly Sunshine at 100,000 lumen All of the long exposure photographs from the previous Tuesday, Thursday, andSaturday of our UFOs Makerspace can be seen on our Facebook. If you would like to create your own light paintings at home, Glowdoodle is an awesome and free application that can help you get started.