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The Bird Men of Alka-Selzer

Dissolving tablets ballet
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This idea occurred to me as I was observing the mesmerising and most excellent visual effects that I often watch whilst listening to music using iTunes on my laptop. I was trying to think if there would be a way of creating a corresponding physical equivalent to the ever changing digital patterns, colours and movements.

The Bird Men of Alka-selzer is the name for a set of effervescent tablets that have been engineered in such a way as to harness the release of the bubble stream to control their movements as they dissolve. Each tablet in a set would swirl around, changing direction, colour, velocity and depth in a predetermined manner. Simply line up twenty tall glasses of water, drop a tablet into each one, pop on the accompanying cd then sit back and watch while the tablets perform a synchronised dance as they slowly dissolve in co-ordinated harmony with the music

xenzag, Mar 09 2006

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       [xenzag] the magician?
wagster, Mar 09 2006
  

       Perhaps the release would be controlled by different thicknesses of soluble lacquers. [+]
coprocephalous, Mar 09 2006
  

       Fishbone until there is some hint as to how this might be accomplished. And maybe after that for thinking that such a thing would be entertaining.
baconbrain, Mar 09 2006
  

       I thought that this was going to be related to the (urban myth?) of feeding birds Alka-Selzer in order to make them explode. This is good too. Have a bun.
dbmag9, Mar 09 2006
  

       I'm not a chemist or physicist, but I recall the effects of water on sodium and calcium. I'm sure that a smart engineer, with some imagination could construct a multilayered tablet, that would expose a series of effervescent particles in a predictable way - Shees guys- I was sweating for a bit there.... (baconbrain) - the tablets will be sculpted to resemble you, and renamed "The Bird Brain of Alka-Selzer" as pay back for that fishbone :-)
xenzag, Mar 10 2006
  
      
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