"Ground Effect" by Guy Marsden |
"The Mother And Child Reunion" by Guy Marsden (this piece is available) |
"child" suspended in thin air! |
The "child" moves around slightly in air currents but remains about a quarter inch away from the upper section at all times. When I decided to embark on this project I researched magnetic levitation and eventually decided to develop my own circuit that would accomplish the levitation for this artwork. (I design electronic products for a living: http://www.arttec.net/Industrial/Design.html). There is a small powerful magnet embedded in the lower section, and an electromagnet with control circuitry that I designed in the upper section. It took me about two weeks of research and development to come up with an ideal circuit.
Having completed the artwork, it occurred to me that other electronic hobbyists might enjoy building the circuit that I came up with. So I approached the hobby electronics magazine: "Nuts and Volts" to see if they would like me to run a construction article. They approved enthusiastically and my article was published in 2003.
Authors who publish construction articles often offer a kit of parts along with a circuit board and instructions to make it easier for people to build their design. So I designed a circuit board, ordered parts and created instructions comprising a total investment of around $500. I hoped that I would sell several dozen kits over the next few months after the article was published. Here's a photo from the article showing the original kit levitating a matryoshka doll:
Original levitation kit assembled |
click here to see more projects |
To bring this blog post back around to the topic of sustainability, a few years later this experience inspired me to market another product that I originally designed for my own personal use. This is a solar differential temperature controller used to improve the performance of my off-grid solar thermal heating systems. I was equally surprised at how easy it was to start the business and how successful it became - I guess I have a knack for starting small businesses. I eventually developed more sophisticated versions of this basic product and market them from a separate website: http://ArtTecSolar.com/
ART TEC SolarSolar Differential Temperature Controllers |
There are now hundreds of my products out there in the world improving the performance of off-grid solar heating systems and I feel good that I am making a contribution to this important renewable energy market segment.
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