Sunday 22 May 2011

In which we are not on fire

Do Not Be On Fire!

This is Rule Zero at Hackspace

I can see why they need it; there is a lot of exhuberant passion for making things, investigating things and no doubt testing them to destruction! But you have to love a place that *needs* a rule like this. So much of life takes not setting yourself on fire for granted and I'm sure it's not nearly as much fun!

Today Hannah and I attended a Young Hackspace session organised for the Hackney home ed group on sound. First up was a session on rhythm with Anthony, a music technologist, involving clapping, discussion of what music *is*, natural rhythms of the human body, eg heartbeats, walking etc, and creating our own rhythms with a drum machine dating from 1985, the year in which music became more than a noise in the background for me!

Afterwards Morag and Pippa ran a session on the physics of sound, involving water tanks, speakers, balloons, air cannons, slinkies, corn flour gloop, pieces of metal pipe and a large wooden hammer, most of which was made by members of the community!

Came away buzzing; I love their enthusiasm and geekiness. It was a little like stepping through the tv onto the set of Brainiac..fewer explosions maybe, but at the end we'd had a blast and nobody was on fire!

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