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At 17:59 03/05/2006, [log in to unmask] wrote:
>trying to think "out-of-the-box" about how a river can be represented.

I've loved water since I was two years old! Please don't look for substitutes.

In its defence, water is one of the very best media for promoting 
'exploratory' behaviour. Ask any child. In terms of movement, you can have 
maximum 'degrees of freedom' with minimum mechanical parts. That translates 
as maximum visitor-engagement with minimum mechanical exhibit failure.

It also means that water doesn't stay where you put it, which is the main 
design challenge. But there is simply no substitute for it. Life depends on 
the uniqueness of its properties.

The suggestion to use exhibits filled with Kalliroscope fluid (water plus 
dye, bactericide and microscopic, flow-tracing mica particles) was a good 
one. http://www.kalliroscope.com/

It's water but it's totally enclosed. It is possible to design almost any 
kind of water exhibit inside a transparent tank or case. (I find glass 
better than acrylic/Plexiglass because it has less of a tendency to 
'steam-up' and doesn't warp like damp acrylic.) Inside a glass tank, and 
visitor-controlled from the outside, you can have bubbles, underwater 
bubbles, soap-film-dippers, breaking waves, shadow-projecting ripple-tanks, 
water pumps, fountains, Archimedes screw, water wheels, weirs, sluices, 
canal locks, magnetically-steered boats, Kalliroscope fluid streamlining 
and turbulence, plughole vortex, parabolic-surface-when-you-spin-the-tank. 
Heck, in another transparent case you can even display many of the real 
creatures which LIVE in your river: only visually interactive in this case, 
but very engaging.

Apart from the aquarium, and where there's no physical contact with 
visitors, dissolving a tiny amount of copper in the water will prevent 
stuff growing in it, especially algae.

Sometimes it's also good to think 'in-the-box'!


[log in to unmask] * http://www.interactives.co.uk
*
Give people facts and you feed their minds for an hour.
Awaken curiosity and they feed their own minds for a lifetime.
*
Ian Russell  

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