Wax Landscapes

Since I had already created a prototype that played with color mixing and light, I decided to attempt a prototype that I had been thinking of for a few weeks that played with melting and dripping wax.

Last year, I had the opportunity to play with wax a lot when designing a candleholder for a class on formgiving.  My goal then was to create a candleholder that took advantage of the way wax dripped off of it.  This time I wanted to allow users to experiment with wax in the same way I had.

When first designing my candleholder, I bought a 100 pack of tea lights and played with them anyway I could.  I burned them sideways, upside down, and carved in various shapes.  Through these explorations, I rediscovered my fascination for the way wax drips and forms of of candles and realized that these drips largely resembled the way stalactites and stalagmites formed.

While I hoped to emulate the reproduce the same phenomena in an exhibit, there were several new challenges I would have to face: 

1. I had to make it safe – while fire and hot wax are extremely fun to play with they can be very dangerous. Using candles and fire was out of the question, yet I still needed a way to melt wax while avoiding the potential for burns
2. I had to make it interactive - candles aren't exactly interactive.  You light them and watch.  I really wanted to facilitate exploration and allow users to experiment by melting wax in different ways.
3. I had to make it repeatable - the other thin about candles is once they're melted they're pretty much done.  That's it.  I needed to find a way to recycle the wax and use it again.

For the first prototype, I wanted to show a proof-of-concept of how exciting, fascinating, and fun dripping wax could be.  I used a hand held blow dryer to melt the wax, which then dripped through holes in the top layer and formed fascinating dripping patterns.  By moving the blow dryer around and placing wax wherever they wanted, users could experiment try to form different patterns and colors.  However I was unable to find a way to make the exhibit repeatable except by manually picking up the dried wax that fell to the bottom.

While this prototype successfully demonstrated a proof of concept and that it had potential as an exhibit, there was plenty of improvements that could be made.  It was cool, but I wanted to design an exhibit that others talked about outside the museum and that people could marvel at and and play with together. 

In the time since making my first prototype, I was able to look at a few Exploratorium pieces that were based more around observation that purely interaction such as the Icy Bodies dry ice exhibit.  I chose to find a way for users to control what experience they observed.  First, I mounted the hair dryer on the side of the exhibit and created an point where users could insert pieces of wax and then watch them melt. By covering the top of the exhibit, I was also able to increase the speed at which the wax melted.  Lastly, I added a silicone cup at the bottom that collected the melted wax and allowed users to take out the wax easily and place it back into the exhibit.

The result was a prototype that was easier to use, showed off the phenomenon of melting max much more easily, and showed potential in its ability to make the process repeatable.  Furthermore, this prototype showed that collecting the dripped wax could also be beautiful.

Insert wax here

Moving forward, I hope to scale up the size and chances for interactivity, find a better way to show off the melting wax, and find better materials as I turn this into a full-scale exhibit over then next few weeks. 

The Wax Dripping

Moving forward there are several areas in which I plan to further prototype and explore.  While the phenomenon of melting wax is cool as currently built, it is poorly displayed.  I need to find a way that will display the wax to users of all ages.  I also hope to better define interaction.  While ideally, I would have users choose where they place the wax, it is possible that this could be too difficult to deal with in large quantities and so I may want it to be fully automated.  I also hope to settle on a heat source.  There are many ways to melt wax through both convection and conduction.  I hope to figure out which method works best for the effect I want and for greatest usability and longevity.  Additionally, while I the silicone cup proved that the wax could be replaced, I hope to test out more options in the future.  Lastly, I hope to explore the idea of using multiple colors versus a single color that is simpler and more easy to recycle.