Plate and film Cameras
Plate and film Cameras
Battersea Power Station 1955
Battersea Power Station 1955
Battersea Power Station 1955
Cars
Cars
Battersea Power Station 1955
3D Printing
3D Printing
3D Printing
Geological Museum 1975
Geological Museum 1975
Adrian's Memories
Natrual History museum from 1982
When the Falklands war started Mrs T the PM sent the research vessels of the National Environmental Council off to the Falklands. The NERC who funded the Institute of Geological Sciences, as it was then known, decided they had to commission more boats to continue their work. They also funded the Geological Museum but decided they could no longer afford to so they 'gave' it back to the government.
The government immediately 'gave' it to the Natural History Museum with the stipulation that nothing was changed for 10 years. At the same time all the staff were disbanded and went their separate ways except for 2 or 3.
My friend Arnold who was the audio visual engineer joined NHM staff together with a couple of others.
Of course my contract ended as regular work, but I still continued to be employed on a 'job to job' basis. The whole of the 'Treasures of the Earth' exhibition was built this way.
The main gallery at the turn of the centuary with the giant dinosaur fossil
The Natural History Museum built a new gallery 'Ecology' in 1989 and I was commissioned to design and make 6 display controllers for various exhibits. I remember one we called 'the dying rabit' which had 6 sequentially lit dioramas showing the life cycle of s rabbit, all rather sad really.
6 channel 100 Watt sequence fader
6 channel 100 Watt sequence fader
6 channel 100 Watt sequence fader
6 channel 100 Watt sequence fader
Another project was instigated when a visitor asked the Curator how many specimens the museum had. 'Well over a million' was the reply. How sad the visitor said as all of them are dead.
So the museum was to have its first living specimens and it was decided to build a formicarium or ant farm.
2 large display cabinets were linked by a tube. One had the soil surrounded by a moat for the ants to create their nest. The other cabinet had a supply of food, again surrounded by a moat.
Temperature and humidity were of paramount importance and special heater humidifier was bought to control the environment in the cases.
It proved fairly useless as it only worked on the temperature and humidity of the air within it.
I was asked to modify it to give better control by having sensors in the cabinets.
I redesigned it and it was a great success and worked well for a year or so until the warders got fed up with being bitten by escaped ants - likewise the visitors.
It just goes to show how difficult it is to contain such adventurous creatures. I am fairly certain the escapes happened when new food was being put in to the cabinet.
The left photo below shows the humidifier and temperature controller with the new control board slotted in to a spare space top left, and on the right is the dual sensor unit with demand LED indicators that was mounted inside the cabinet
In the arachnid gallery in 1997 they had a display showing how spiders knew when there was something worth eating in their webs. The spider senses vibration in the web and if it is the right type will know lunch has arrived.
I was asked to design a unit to produce various types of vibration that could be sensed by the visitor gently touching the surface of a large pushbutton.
When it was slightly depressed it started the circuit which randomly produced vibrations. Some were simple single or double pulses like something falling into the web but others were a fast vibration possibly made by a winged insect desperately trying to escape.
As soon as the visitor felt these he or she had to push the button hard and the panel lit up 'Well done you have caught the fly'
In 1991 a diorama needed a graphic background of the suns rays pulsing out from the sun's disk.
It was the early days of LEDs but we managed to select similar intensity yellow lamps to produce the required effect. All mounted on circuit boards that made it very neat. It was done with a 3 'on' in 4 chase to make the brightest display
