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/*Arduino is so cool, I'm sick of it. So this time I'm going to leave the arduino alone.
[imaging here is a youtube video that smashing arduino with a hammer, cause I couldn't find one, even though I thought people would smash everything and put it online]
*/
We share thoughts and gossip almost everyday. We are used to communicate through our smart phones and facebook page, even hardly use the telephone anymore. But before the invention of the electromagnetic telephone, there were mechanical acoustic devices for transmitting spoken words and music over a distance greater than that of normal speech. The very earliest mechanical telephones were based on sound transmission through pipes or other physical media.
From 1664 to 1665 Robert Hooke experimented with sound transmission through a taut distended wire. An acoustic string phone was attributed to him as early as 1667. After that the string phone became a classical children toy for centuries. During the 20th century, it came into common use in preschools and elementary schools to teach children about sound vibration.
To find out more about how does the string phone work?
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/talk-through-a-string-telephone-bring-science-home/
The idea
The idea came from the desire of escaping from all those electronic devices we use everyday and avoid the methods we are familiar with. And also I would love to make something that people could play with it. So for this project, I'm using string phone as a media and the goal is to make the project both non-electronic and interactive. I simulated the way of how the telephone worked back to 1940s.
Material
❤ 6x paper cups
❤ fancy colorful cotton strings
❤ match stick
❤ 2x wooden boards
❤ 6x A4 paper
❤ 1 cute operator
Make it work!
Step 1. I made a string operating table with 2 wooden boards. And then I made 6 single-end string phones.
Some of you might be wondering how to make a string phone? Good question, this gentleman here would show you step by step:
Step 2. In telephone system I'm simulating, the users first have to call the operator to identify themselves and tell the operator who are they calling. And then the operator would connect the wires between those two telephones.
To simulate this process, I chose another childhood toys—paper airplane to be the messenger! I asked the user to make their own paper airplane and sign their name on it, so the airplane became a unique symbol like a telephone number. Then if they want to call someone, they only need to write the person's name on the airplane and fly it to the operator. After the operator connected the strings, the operator send the airplane to the receiver so he/she knows someone's calling and picks up the phone. Simple and interactive!
Step 3. Fly the airplane and pick up the phone!
//This is not only a tribute to old media, but also to our childhood fun.
//special thanks to Robbert for the last two wonderful pictures.
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