Ancient Rome at the Maritime Museum

 

Recently L won a prize in an "Ask the scientist" competition with the WA Maritime Museum. Today we went along to collect the prize and to have a look at the Ancient Rome: Epic Innovators and Engineers temporary exhibition. 

The exhibition is pretty cool and has many working models of Roman machines. The first section showed machines used to build the Colosseum, aqueducts and other structures. 

Waterwheel

Crane

Gears

Water clock

There were lots of uniforms that Roman soldiers would have worn.

There were several types of catapults and battering rams.

This model showed how lions and gladiators were raised up to the floor of the Colosseum arena in a lift using pulleys, gears and trapdoors.

This is the front of a ship with an attachment that could be lowered to board an enemy vessel. The big spike on the end tore into the deck and held the ships together whilst soldiers poured onboard.

Splash Photography

 Today, I did some splash photography for my lesson. It involved putting the camera on a tripod, filling a glass with water, and taking a photo at the exact time that a small mandarin lands in the glass. It was quite complex, and we had to use a special remote to trigger the camera, and have a backdrop. The setup also had a flash, which was out of the shot.

This is the base photo:

And these are two edited photos!

Comment which one you like best! Mine is the one on the right.

Aviation Heritage Museum

This week we decided to explore a museum in Perth that we have not visited; the Aviation Heritage Museum in Bull Creek. 

This place is jam packed full of planes, helicopters, models, uniforms, army supplies, photographs, medals, engines and everything you can think of to do with aviation.

The kids enjoyed looking round whilst dad spoke about the finer points of aircraft engineering. There are lots of guides who are ex pilots who can answer questions and tell you about the history of the exhibits.

Sparkler Photography

This is sparkler photography - created using a lightbulb, a mirror, and a party sparkler. To get this effect, you will need your camera on a low ISO (100), and long exposure time, around 2 seconds at f/16. 

This was taken on a mobile phone, so you don't need a professional setup :)

Abstract Photography

A short while ago, I was doing a lesson on abstract photography. It turned out some interesting photos.

                         

                                                                                            

Can you guess what the object on the right is?

The answer is a meat tenderiser.

Sparkler Photography

A little while ago we did some photography involving sparklers blu-tacked behind a lightbulb!

We set the camera to go for 2-4 seconds, giving a high enough exposure that you can see the light trails.

This is one in colour, but I prefer black and white.

Another black & white one, but with a reflection this time.

(We did them all on a mirror)

Kitchen Utensils Photography

We did photography a while ago and took some photos of kitchen items, many we did using blue light, and looking at them from weird angles. Above is an edited fork with a spoon on top.

This is a grater!

A hand flour sieve.

And, my favourite, the whisk.