Tag Archive for: music

We don’t talk about Pluto

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Poster: this class has gone 0 days without singing 'We don't talk about Bruno'If you haven’t seen this image doing the rounds – sorry, we don’t know who originated it – you very likely recognise the situation anyway. It’s been several months and this song is still everywhere.

Including, it turns out, space. Above, our favourite pastiche version, We Don’t Talk About Pluto. Very, very well done Jon Pumper (YouTube link).

Meanwhile: we hope you’re all having an excellent British Science Week. And if you’re not quite feeling it yet, maybe try talking about Pluto?

Your Future with Physics

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The Institute of Physics (IOP) have have recently added some great new videos to their website.  They showcase how physics graduates use and apply the skills gained whilst studying physics to their work.

The skills acquired from studying physics are transferable and highly valued by employers.  According to the IOP studying physics helps you to develop:

  • Analytical skills
  • Problem solving skills
  • Numerical skills
  • Ability to think objectively
  • Investigative skills
  • Communication skills

… as well as many more.

For example, in the video at the start of this post, Vinnie Kalcut, who is a senior finance analyst at record company BMG Chrysalis, discusses how she uses her physics skills as part of a company unearthing musical talent!

To find out more about Vinnie, and other physicists putting their skills to use across a variety of sectors visit the IOP website – Your Future with Physics  

Teachers: The videos are great to use as session starters in classes to promote future career possibilities, and the transferable skills students gain by studying physics!

 

 

Tinkering Thursday: March 5th “Turn it off!” edition

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Andrew has invented the ANNOY-O-TRON!! It’s in block capitals and has two exclamation marks, to be particularly annoying. A development of the previous instrumented pendulum, the ANNOY-O-TRON!! features several key advances:

  • Annoyingly many ‘compile / wait / upload / wait / fail / turn off / wait / turn back on / wait’ cycles.
  • Annoying choice of annoyingly loud GarageBand synthesised instrument.
  • Annoyingly flaky MIDI interface from the TouchBoard to GarageBand…
  • …which turned out to be caused by an annoyingly obvious-in-hindsight bug. Who knew that unless you turn a note off before playing a new one, GarageBand spawns a new instrument for each, topping out at 64 instruments? Harrumph. Annoying.
  • Annoyingly not-very-tremendous result in the end.
Andrew does battle with the less annoying parts of his code.

Andrew does battle with the less annoying parts of his code.

Annoyances aside: Andrew’s now turned the instrumented pendulum into something wholly more whimsical and ridiculous than, er, the sampled sine wave of previous weeks. He’s also had two sensors being synthesised at once, which obviously doubles the annoyance factor.

Next up: further exploring the MIDI controller aspect of this, to see how much flexibility there is to manipulate instruments rather than simply trigger notes. Then there’s building a frame, rigging a dozen pendulums, working out what and how we want to turn into what sort of sound, and thinking about what else we can drive with the data. Sound is only part of the excessive annoying extravaganza that will be this installation.

Tune in next Tinkering Thursday for tales of triumph over annoying adversity!

Andrew would like to make it clear that the annoyingly frequent use of the word ‘annoying’ in this update is not his responsibility.