A few materials needed for the test tube kaleidoscope outcome to experiment with. Yesterday I went to Art friend to get a few materials to make the test tube kaleidoscope, and I was quite lucky because I managed to find the materials I had in mind. I bought the biggest test tubes, cork stoppers, acrylic mirror and plastic sheet.
For this experiment, instead of using materials that are collected using the five senses, I used some colour small beads for the experiment.
To test out the making of the prism, I tried out with a post card that is hard enough to be pushed into the test tube and still be able to stay in form. I tried 2 different dimensions of 2cm x 10cm and 1.8cm x 10cm. At first it couldn't find till the bottom of the test tube, but the one with the smaller dimensions did, with enough space to cap on the cork stopper.
After that, I tried it out with the acrylic mirror. The acrylic mirror looks exactly like a mirror just that it is not made of glass, so I was able to cut it with a acrylic cutter. I have to be very careful with scoring the acrylic sheet and each extra or missing cm matters. Then, I taped the outer side of the acrylic mirror into a prism. It was able to fit in but not totally.
Lastly, I picked out some beads and sequins of different size and colour and placed them into the test tube. And here are the results, they did not disappoint but they are not what I had in mind. Because the prism did not fully enter the test tube, and the test tube being transparent, a lot of light was able to enter and reflections of the things around were reflected into the kaleidoscope. This experiment did not really succeed, but at least now I know which dimensions are the best to work with and how I can improve. Also, if we are sticking to this method, we will most probably cut and build the kaleidoscope in the school workshop.
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