Wax and a bit of a waggle

Hurrah! Three separate proofs of concepts came together today – functioning mould, motor affecting a wax shell, and the electronics – so it’s now full steam ahead to try and get a working prototype together for my upcoming talk at the Pervasive Media Studio.

Here are some photos from today.

Soaking the mould in order to separate the two halves

The two halves of the mould parted to reveal the clay pattern they were formed around.

The mould, now containing molten wax, strapped up and about to be tumbled until my arms ached too much to continue...

Fettled pod. Ths test casting just used whatever dregs were available, resulting in this green colour. Now I know it works, I'll start testing different blends to get the translucent effect I want.

Next it was time to see if the motor I've been protoyping with has the right sort of effect on the wax shell. It does!

All of my ‘making of’ photos are going into this set on Flickr. If you do eventually spend fifteen minutes walking around with one of these things, please spare a though for the weeks of making that have gone into it!