Water wizardry!
Blog Post by Josh Yates
Last year, Explorer Dome were approached by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) to develop a new show about the chemistry of water. I’m sure we’re all familiar with the diagram of the water cycle from science class; water evaporates from the ocean, condenses into clouds, and falls as rain etc. This analogy is, if you forgive the pun, a little dry…
Water with a Bang
We decided to take a look at water outside of the confines of our watery world, and imagine the possibilities of water and life elsewhere in our solar system. How do we get from earth to space in the context of water? Well, water is hydrogen and oxygen. Rocket fuel is hydrogen and oxygen! We commissioned Richard Ellam to build us a remarkable machine – The Hoffman Voltameter. This uses electrolysis to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gasses, and combine them again with explosive results. Brilliant!
Unique animations
For the visual aspect of the show, we worked with NSC Creative who are digital magicians of the highest order. They managed to take our wild ideas and create fantastical animations that fill the audience with awe and wonder. Altogether, I think we have produced not only a world first, but a world class show using the best aspects of hand-on science, quality scientific content, and digital immersive animation.
