One of the dubious joys of starting a project from scratch is that you have to order everything. Pens, pencils. Microscopes. Soldering irons. Infra-red cameras. Meteorite samples. A cubic metre of snow globes. You name it, we’ve filled in the purchase order form for it. Which means the next joy is receiving exciting deliveries every day. A parade […]
A simple Tinkering Thursday this week as we start to – let’s be honest – tidy the office so it’s not quite such a heap when we return in early January. Carol produced a lovely little ripple tank which had apparently been in one of the many cardboard boxes strewn around the office, and we proceeded to […]
In the photograph above, Joe is pointing a telescope at the sun. Two things about this are remarkable: It’s December, we’re in Newcastle, and we actually saw the sun today. Joe can still see. We all know – obviously – that looking at the sun through telescopes, binoculars, even cameras is, in general, a really really bad idea. But let’s be clear, […]
We’re collaborating with the North-East Chamber of Commerce to produce a series of careers case-study films. I’ll avoid saying too much about it (is it hush-hush? I’m not sure…), but to the left is our first interviewee and below right, our second. Yes, it’s all a little high-powered. Filming Jacqui involved a trip up to her company’s factory […]
This week Think Lab has been playing host to a delegation of Chinese architects – hey, it’s all go here – so we set to work in our office instead. We already have a hundred snow globes strewn around the place, what harm is there in adding a little craft mess?
No idea where you’re headed? This personality survey at the Guardian today might offer you some ideas. Two warnings: The test is sponsored by a life insurance company. It suggests I should seriously consider wedding planning as a career, which doesn’t quite line up with anything I might remotely enjoy ever ever ever. What I do like about it is […]
We’ve been exploring a novel way of viewing the colour fringes created by curved soap films, with fairly dramatic results. This is a quick test time-lapse with only very minor processing – the camera really did see colours this dramatic. In a week or two we’ll write up an activity based around this, but if you’re particularly keen you can probably […]
