Horse movement - example 1: Warhorse & Handspring Puppet Company

The Handspring Puppet Company is a puppetry performance and design company established in 1981 by Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones. Based in Cape Town, South Africa, the company provides an artistic home and professional base for a core group of performers, designers, theatre artists and technicians.  Handspring’s work has been presented in more than 30 countries around the world.

The Handspring Puppet Company achieved critical acclaim when War Horse premiered in South Bank, London, on 17 October 2007. For this show, Kohler and Jones worked with directors Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris and choreographer Toby Sedgwick to design and construct life-sized horse puppets, controlled by three actors – two to operate the legs and one to control the head and neck, with all three actors providing a variety of sound effects. (from Company website - link is pasted below)

''War horse puppets are made from a cane frame and stretched fabric, they weigh 66lbs each and are a tough assignment for the three puppeteers working inside them.

The two working towards the back of each frame carry its weight and simulate the basic movements of a horse using levers that make the knees bend or the legs walk.

The puppeteer nearest the front leads the horse, controlling its head with a rod and using levers to operate the ears.''

The movement of these puppets is eerily lifelike, the juxtaposition of latticework construction and puppeteers appearing incongruous against the dazzling realism of movement. Ten horses were made for the production in total, one of which, the mother of the foal, had to be cut when the storyline was tightened. “It was a shame the mare had to go,” says Kohler, “she had beautiful hip movements! Nonetheless, it was amazing to watch the directors working during the final weeks of production. They made some fairly ruthless cuts to the story line to bring a three-and-a-halfhour

show down to two-and- -half-hours, which streamlined the storytelling beautifully. It was like watching sculptors work.”

Team of creative personnel:

Puppet Design, Fabrication & Direction: Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler for Handspring Puppet Company

Adrian Kohler: Artistic Director & Puppet Designer

Thys Stander: Chief Cane Sculptor

James Dee: Factory Manager & Mech. Engineer

Jessica Mias – Jones: Asst Factory Manager & Puppet Maker

Simon Dunkley: Puppet Engineer

Andy Jones:Puppet Engineer & Supervisor

Phyllis Midlane: Fabric Engineer

Peter Collard: Puppet Maker

Ncedile Daki: Puppet Builder & Assistant Engineer

Kyle Daniels: Puppet Builder

Johannes De Lange: Puppet Builder

Luyanda Nogodlwana: Puppet Builder & Supervisor

Lyn Sieborger: Asst Puppet Builder

Zweli Ngcombela: Assistant Cane Sculptor

Phillip Roberts: Studio Assistant

Christiaan Johnson: Studio Assistant

Ntimpeba Epimac: Studio Assistant

http://www.handspringpuppet.co.za/

Article: Engineering the movement
Photographs bellow are from the Handspring Puppet Company book (online version)

                                     

Ljubljana tests II (October) - new type of anodes and cathodes

New tests focused on a different type of anode and cathode. Original tests were made with simple curved round end of stainless steel rod on which carbon fibre was attached using stainless steel mesh. both materials work as anode and cathode. When meat is decomposing we took into account that content of the bottle should be replaced - for example between exhibitions. It would theoretically also produce more power if content could be mixed during decomposing (future tests). In this regard - carbon cloth has no function. After cleaning with water or otherwise (mechanically) it has no function anymore as it gets destroyed. Also, circulation of heavy particles would damaged carbon cloth. Graphite rods are easy to clean as they are solid.

 proton exchange membrane with agar agar salt bridge

Cathode made from the stripe of carbon fibre 1 m long 5 cm width (photo below is a sample)

The main part of anode/cathode is 40 mm round stainless steel washer connected with stainless steel screw and stainless steel nuts. For the cathode carbon fibre is wrapped around a screw and protected with wrapping of stainless steel wire mesh.

For the anode, holes are drilled through washers. Graphite rods (smooth sandpapered and cleaned with nitro thinner artistic drawing pencils - for tests different softness) are assembled into the whole anode through holes and pressed with a screw)

an example of both electrodes

construction of salt bridge through EVA foam stopper

Old meat blended

 Meat and water blended = 500 g

in 500 ml of water 8 g of probiotic cultures were mixed

100 ml of probiotic cultures is mixed to 500 g of meat + methylene blue (10 drops)

1st of November update:

- all the results are varying. If there would be some conclusion from them is that HB graphite has better electro-conductivity than softer (probably more dirty graphite)

links to materials online

Proton exchange membrane (PEM) for fuel cells:

1) Nafion /C₇HF₁₃O₅S . C₂F₄/ Nafion is a sulfonated tetrafluoroethylene based fluoropolymer-copolymer discovered in the late 1960s by Walther Grot of DuPont.[1] It is the first of a class of synthetic polymers with ionic properties which are called ionomers. Nafion's unique ionic properties are a result of incorporating perfluorovinyl ether groups terminated with sulfonate groups onto a tetrafluoroethylene (Teflon) backbone.[2][3] Nafion has received a considerable amount of attention as a proton conductor for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells because of its excellent thermal and mechanical stability.
- http://fuelcellsetc.com/store/Nafion
- http://fuelcellstore.com/membranes/nafion
- https://www.chemours.com/Nafion/en_US/products/nafion.html
2) Fumion // Fumion is registered trademark of German based industry Fumatech
- http://www.fumatech.com/EN/Membranes/Products/


Laboratory equipment (Slovenia):

1) Mikro+Polo
 - http://market.mikro-polo.si/katalog.aspx/29427/Laboratorijski-pribor
2) Laboratorijum
- http://www.laboratorijum.si/ponudba/laboratorijski-pribor/
3) Golias
- http://www.golias.si/ & http://www.scilabware.com/Flasks/c-1-54/
4) Labena
- http://www.labena.si/index.php/produkti/splosni-in-potrosni-laboratorijski-material/dispenzerji
5) Donau LAb
- http://donaulab.si/Produkti

Agar agar
http://www.mokca.si/etrgovina/dodatki-za-peko-in-kuhanje/eko-agar-agar-zelirno-sredstvo/
https://www.malinca.si/agar-agar-20g.html
https://trgovina.mercator.si/market/izdelek/6706038/zelirno-sredstvo-agar-agar-ruschin-30g

microbiological cultures
Lactobacillus:
- Megal http://www.megal.si/index.php/prodajni-program/pripomocki-za-sirarstvo
- Biotehnični center naklo http://www.bc-naklo.si/index.php?id=215
http://www.mtc-holding.com/en/contact.php
http://www.chr-hansen.com/probiotic-supplements-and-infant-formula/cards/collection-cards/standard-offerings/our-probiotic-strains?cid={55F599A2-DB87-41CE-BEFA-260A0FDD4BAF}&pid={00E61D56-8E8E-4605-8E6E-DCD891A48903}

Coulplers
- http://www.seltron.si/material-za-vodovod/cevi-in-fitingi/alkaten/spojke.html
- http://www.kotu.si/index.php/vrt/namakalni-sistemi-zalivanje-vrta.html?p=9
- http://www.zagozen.si/si/vodovod/armature/spojke/ijoint-hitre-spojke-za-pe-cevi
- http://www.ekolux.si/hitre-spojke
- http://www.stigma-cs.si/index.php?site=sales_program&id=11&sub=41
- http://sam.si/produkti/vodovod_in_ogrevanje/vodovod/alkaten_cevi_in_spojke/294/spojka_plasson_20_do_63/
- http://jurcokd.com/trgovina/dvovijacnik-pvc-za-vodo-2x34
- http://www.bazenska-trgovina.si/trgovina/pvc-spojni-material/dvovijacnik-ali-nipel

Plastics:
- http://www.plastikatrcek.si/prodajni-program/
- http://www.exmega.si/oblike.html
- http://www.bazenska-trgovina.si/trgovina/pvc-spojni-material/pvc-lepilna-spojka

MFC: Ljubljana: new tests 20.8. - 5.9.

Meat for tests is located as number 9 and 10. Minced meat is made of meat and fat.

New tests with horse meat started in the middle of the August. As mentioned in the previous post, meat was in the fridge for more than two weeks and it is possible that some decomposing bacterias were already there. Decomposing bacterias were located on the surface, in the middle meat looked fresh. The difference is seen on the graph. Same meat is in the bottles with two different groups: meat with a mediator (blue line and rhombuses) and mediator free meat (red line and dots). Differences can be explained with bacterias from the surface of the meat. One test bottle is mediator and meat free - it is a just probiotic culture which has one of the best current (Volt) graph (yellow line and square). Further tests might still look for different decomposing bacterias.


Down there are photos. One part of meat from first days of tests is on the top and the bottom of the content. Last days less meat is on the top (fat).

starting new tests (final prior to the exhibition) additional measurements follows:
- test bottle with just micro bacteria had no effects after one month
- meat bottles without mediator descended more (further measurements follow in next week)

1st of November update:

Voltage is more or less stabilised. Increasing of voltage is very low and it is due to more warm weather than previous days. (between 8 and 20 C)

Problem with the first bottle with just a meat - decreasing of voltage to less than half value from the others is possible to made suspicion that there is something wrong (Oxygen came to anaerobic bottle etc.)

House Layer, last week (3.-13-8.) and new generation in Ljubljana 20.8.

Here is an update: two weeks ago we have worked on the last week experimenting with bacterias for MFC. Their action was already declining, but we have managed them to run additional tests.

From the beginning of tests, each MFC was measured separately depending on the content of each fuel cell. Final experiments integrated all cells together: connected in series were capable of producing over 1,5 volts.

Current we got from MFC's didn't have enough stamina to run LED. We have also tried Joule thief and charging of a battery as a possible solution for energy harvesting.

At the end of experiments all cells were disposed to the toilet. The opening of bottles released the strong odour.

New tests need more experiments on:
- bigger surface of electrodes
- bigger and shorter protonic bridge or other
- separate three tests with the same amount of meat and bacterias, test with only meat, test with only cultures
- tests with joule thief and battery charging
- possible working on further decomposition as it might represent an important flow of organic matter
- locating of bacteria (microbial cells and organisms from the body) and gas (Co2 ...) in the anaerobic bottles

These first experiments were crucial. Next will start soon in Ljubljana.

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 This weekend meat was not available, but some tests started with old equipment.

At the end of testing MFC's in Kranj, there was a plan to make new fuel cells. One part was for Vinogradsky column and another part was waiting for new tests. Because of illness meat was in the fridge for two weeks. A further study was also kept in the mind: A question of all possible different microbial cultures existing in the process of decomposing of meat (one of the previous post). Meat in the fridge had drained fluids on the bottom of a bag and all over the surface of the meat. In the centre of the meat, it had a fresh appearance. In each bottle around 200 g of meat was laid. At the time it was not important which part was taken - surface or centre. Before putting the methylene blue to the bottles, because of different readings, two bottles were separated, one bottle was extra with just microbic cultures.

A mediator is still working better, but there are already bacterias in the decomposing meat that work mediator free. Question is - are lactobacillus needed (test with just meat in water).

The difference between first and second day is also visible in meat floating on the top. This meat was minced, but it was not blended as in the original tests. Next experiment will be with blended meat.

Anaerobic pots also have one tube each for releasing CO2 and other gases into the air through water container.