In the workshop today we concentrated on the sense of SMELL and SOUNDS. In the morning we asked the group to use their sense of smell. We asked the group if they could point to the part of the body we use for our sense of smell. The picture below shows Rachel pointing out a nose. Robyn brought fruit for the group to eat but asked them to smell it before they ate it.
We asked our Co-Researchers to point to which part of the body we use to smell Rachel points to the nose
Then our Co-Researchers were given brown bags containing different smells we asked them to give them a smiley if they like the smell or a sad face if they didn’t then we put them in order of the favourite and least favourite smell.
Smelling the bags Guillermo, Rachel with Robyn
The picture below shows the smells in order of preference, soap and rosemary were the favourites, soil the least but this was probably because it didn’t smell very strong. Luke was very good at recognising the smells.
Smells in order of preference
After we asked the group to identify something in the museum that linked to the smells, we ended up in the herb garden to find rosemary, lavender and soil. Luke linked cheese to cows.Rachel found some mint too.
Rachel with bag of soil touching soil
We asked the group if they thought a smell would fit inside their boots, baskets and buckets, the picture below shows Rachel who choose rosemary to go in her basket, Sian wanted to put oranges and apples in her basket, Skye thought soil could go in her boot we discussed filling the boot with soil and planting lavender in it so it could grow we thought that might me a good idea. We wondered what plants could grow indoors that smell strongly? Cathy mentioned it would be good for the boots to be decorated so we will do that too in another workshop.
Rachel put rosemary in a bucket
The picture below shows the bag of smells Guillermo chose to put in a bucket he was quite distracted as the bucket was so reflective, he spent a lot of time looking at his face in the bucket.
Guillermo put smell of lavender oil in a bucket some of the group liked this others didn’t
Robyn asked the Co-Researchers to choose from different icings by smell to ice some cakes she made, chocolate was the most popular and blueberry the least, there was orange and lemon too.
Robyn offers Skye Cakes
Skye ices cakes
After lunch we experimented with a smell box developed by Nic, the idea was to create a way of triggering smells using littleBits in similar way we had used the sound box.
Guillermo smell box
Guillermo enjoyed the smell of rosemary but he also liked the breeze he could feel from the fan wafting the smell. The picture below shows Sky clapping to trigger the smell box while Sian checks for the breeze from the fan.
Skye & Sian claps to trigger smells
After this activity we imaged triggering smells in our Buckets, Baskets and Boots.
We then began another experiment using sound keys. Each Co-Researcher was asked to make a key from foam any shape they liked.
The keys have aluminium foil and was connected by wires to a micro controller. When all the keys were linked to the computer each key was linked to an animal noise when the keys were pressed the animal noise happened. The picture below shows the group working really well together with the keys create an orchestra of animal noises with different rhythms.
The group press their keys to make individual animal sounds together they create and orchestra
Nic linked the sounds to the bucket which worked when you put your hand in the bucket the group experimented with it. Guillermo and Rachel were good at moving their hands in and out to trigger animal sounds.
All the buckets together creating sounds, Rachels key and Rachel and Guillermo put there hands in and out to trigger sounds,
Our final activity of the day was to record a version of Old MacDonald the group sang to images of animals making all the animal sounds.