[Yup - this blog entry is almost 2 weeks late. Much late-night and last-minute work to make a proper entry for the "Describe your project" phase of the HAD prize. We all agreed to take a week off...]

We plan to make two movies showcasing what we've done for the project: an overview video which is comprehensive and shows generally how the system is used, and a high-level one showing an interferometer. An interferometer is notoriously fiddly and sensitive to vibrations, so if we can pull that one off it will show people that you can still create high-level effects using the simple system.

Here's hoping.

Team members have purchased a ton of hardware. For example, in a few weeks I will be a rare-earth magnet millionaire. We have a line on really cheap cap-head screws, and another team member is purchasing a selection of Arduino add-on boards.

Most sensors and optical components need a component or two to interface to an Arduino. (A diode needs a ballast resistor, a lamp needs a transistor and a resistor, a phototransistor needs a ballast resistor, and so on.) We think we can find a standard Arduino prototype shield you can get for cheap on eBay, and a handful (ie - a dozen) of standard components that can be used to interface to things.

One team member, who happens to have a young child (I think he picked her up at a yard sale), is particularly focused on experiments that pre high-school kids can do. I'm more into the high-concept experiments.

Which is great. We realize that we need a range of experiments, and lets each of us focus on the aspect we're most interested in.

More on this later...

As an aside, and speaking of high-concept, I *think* I've figured out a way to make a hobbyist Kerr cell, which is a sort of high speed optical switch. These are notoriously expensive and hard to come by.

The hobbyist version would require some construction and a special (but conceptually simple) power supply board, but it should be within the capability of a college student or AP high-schooler.

I don't know if I'll have time to try to build one before the contest ends, but if it can be done it would be a coup for home optics experiments.