Open Day 2008 was for friends to see all my best stuff running.

Home Open Day 2008

I have held regular Home Open Days where I did demonstrations for people by invitation.
“Continue reading” for highlights of the many displays. 36 photos.

People often ask to see stuff through the year but it is very time consuming to set aside a whole afternoon of setup time for 1 or 2 people. This way I can reach more people and do a better display and show a lot more things. I have done these in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2010.

In 2008, I aimed to be a bit bigger than the two previous years with better labeled displays. About 70 – 80 people turned up for the show (or was it the free beer?). I had a total of about 50 displays and was assisted by the University Physics Dept who came 200 km from Perth and helped out with the liquid nitrogen and ferrofluid displays. The photo above shows that geeks and women aren’t mutually repulsive (it lasted 5 seconds before they ran away). The technique was to have everyone on place with lights out and TC off. Then the camera flashes but keeps exposing for 5 seconds while everyone runs away and I run to turn the TC on briefly to capture the sparks as well.

The left photo shows Cooper, Jessica and me. This was very popular with the kids of all ages and about 30 shots like this with different people were taken. The right photo shows Sam from the Physics Dept with new found powers.

I am holding a fluoro tube. Note the chain mail glove and two separate earth wires for redundancy. It would not be good if one fell off and there was no backup. The Faraday cage still seems to get the greatest audience response.

For the Open day 2008, I had around 50 displays most of which are based on a topic from the website

The big Tesla coil was the feature with sparks up to 6 feet, also the Faraday cage, and sparks striking a fluoro tube, string of CD’s, burning wood etc
Capacitor bank for can crusher and exploding steel wool
Smoke ring machine
Bernoulli ball with peacock feathers
Bubble machine
Liquid nitrogen for smashing rubber balls, hammering with bananas, demo of Monel metal and the occasional explosion.
Ferrofluid.
Laptops (3) with Videos/Website.
Jacob’s ladder
Big electromagnet (80 kg)
Pyramid with lights and tunes
Radioactivity with Geiger counter, with Americium from smoke detector, Uranium ore and marbles, Tritium keyring and radium watchface.
Mini Tesla coil
Tesla coil from MO parts
Tesla coil reconstruction from 30 years ago
4 inch Tesla coil (setup as backup)
Lifter and 80 kV display
Ignition coil sparks in a Microwave oven.
Simple ignition coil display running from 12 V
Microwaving CD’s
Ultraviolet light
Blu-ray laser
Helium-Neon 10 mW laser
Helium-Neon 1 mW laser
Green 5 mW laser scanner
Lemon Battery lighting a LED
Homopolar motor
Power transistor as a LED
Spinthariscope
Robotic car
Flashing glasses
Autodose medication delivery device
Power supply from 1971
Model solar car
Magnets to push together
Magnetic film
Magnetohydrodynamic boat
Magnetic array
Magnetic meter
Soldering station
Computer plotter
Aerogel
Plasma ball
Diamagnetic Levitation
Railgun
Coilgun
Capacitor bank 1.5 kJ

Home Open Day 2007 (the second)

This year I sent out a few more invites. This show is mainly for neighbours but in the end none turned up – still there were about 40 people. I put out my usual array of displays including ferrofluid, soldering demos, magnets and small power supplies and lights for the kids, Oscilloscope with microphone attached, lasers including HeNe and green scanner, HV displays of sparks, lifter, small TC, Jacobs ladder, smoke ring generator, CD in microwave and magnetic levitation.

The weather was not in my favour with high winds and intermittent showers but I did get to run the big TC and get some shots of people next to it.

Home Open Day Nov 2006 (the first)

This was the original Open Day. It was primarily to keep the neighbours aware that the noises they hear from my place are friendly and not gunshots. For this one I set up about 20 different Tesla, high voltage, laser and magnetic displays and make a few loud noises.