Tag Archives: bubbles

From the Our Space engine room……

13 November 2012 – 8.46am

Scrolling through the thousands of images you have sent us over the past few years there are certain favourites that continue to delight not just the moderators but the majority of visitors too.

You will probably know them already – we see the perennials constantly returning to the ‘most viewed’ images on the Wall. Possibly the most viewed photo is this one…

Giant bubble, Queen's Wharf, Wellington 19 May 2005. Photograph and copyright: Philip Capper

Giant bubble, Queen’s Wharf, Wellington 19 May 2005. Photograph and copyright: Philip Capper

…a slightly out-of-focus Giant Bubble created out on Wellington’s waterfront. Just look at those fantastic colours floating in the air.

There in one single moment in time is all of our childhood wonder and delight at such a marvellous thing…a beautiful bubble which will burst any moment and leave us slightly sad but smiling that we saw it. It’s hardly a surprise then that a man can turn bubbles into a career and bring joy to thousands of kids-of- all-ages. Great big bubbles, bubbles within bubbles, multi-story bubbles, magical bubbles.

The thing about visiting the Museum is to try and remember the sheer delight of your first visits as a child. We see it every day as children cannot contain the joy of discovery, squealing as they try and take it all in. Then as they grow and return to that wonderfully silly moment when they recognise an old friend like the waterball at the front door. Cool! Following on are favourites that capture the Wahoo moments of our lives…that moment of Freedom, no shackles just busting out and having fun like…these guys.

FMX. Photograph and copyright: Pieter ten Broek

FMX. Photograph and copyright: Pieter ten Broek

Turoa. Photograph and copyright: Pieter ten Broek

Turoa. Photograph and copyright: Pieter ten Broek

“When I grow up I want to be a kid”. Hold that thought and you’ll have just the ‘Bestest’ adventures right throughout your life.

by RG, OurSpace moderator and host

By Te Papa | Posted in Exhibitions, Photography | Also tagged , , | Comments (0)

All clear!

9 January 2009 – 10.44am

The bubbles are just about gone and the squid tank is all clear! You can now get a really good, clear view of this amazing specimen.

Last night we had to close off the squid exhibition for a few hours, during our normal Thursday evening opening hours. The team took out about 600 litres of fluid from the tank, lowering the level of the liquid. They then carefully added the liquid back into the tank using a gravity feed, rather than pumping it in – to avoid adding in any air.

The annoying bubbles had been sticking to the tank lid through surface tension. By changing the liquid out in this way, we’ve managed to get rid of nearly all the bubbles.

It was also a chance for us to have a good look at the squid specimen and check out how it’s doing. The squid was sitting quite close against the lid of the tank, which is not ideal as this may cause damage to the tissues. The liquid changeover has improved things but we will need to keep reviewing things over the next few weeks.

We also took the opportunity to add in some more biocide to the tank liquid, to make sure that no nasty moulds are growing on it!

By pamelalovis | Posted in Colossal squid | Also tagged , , | Comments (0)

Happy New Year! may it be bubble-free

7 January 2009 – 2.08pm

It’s the seventh day into the New Year, 2009, and the colossal squid continues to attract a huge crowd of visitors every day. We just love how much you are loving it!

We now have more than 23,000 wonderfully creative squid made on Build a Squid. More than 10,800 say they’re from the USA and there’s 6,000 squid from New Zealand.

Nicolai from Hawai’i wants to know how old the oldest squid is. Well, the first ones were made around or a bit before 13 December, so the oldest is now about 26 days old. Here are two squid you can follow:

“LucyRyan” from New Zealand who is now 26 days old, weighs 12 kg and has travelled 234 km. Today she is searching for a t-shirt with ten sleeves… 

“Pamela” from New Zealand who is slightly younger at 23 days old, weighs 10 kg and has travelled 207 km – and has just seen a submarine.

The squid you see that are 0 days old are new ones made each day by visitors to the exhibition itself as well as online users.  Te Papa is open 365 days of the year,  including Christmas Day!

We’ll be working on plans for the Build a Squid interactive in the next few weeks. At the moment all the squid stay up and keep having more adventures.

On the bubble front it’s good to see that the troublesome bubbles in the tank have cleared quite a bit over the last two weeks. We’ll also be lowering the liquid level in the squid tank tomorrow evening and then carefully filling it up again.

We hope this will clear away the remaining bubbles and give  everyone a bubble-free view of the world’s biggest invertebrate.

 

 

 

 

 know that you’re Twittering about it as well be a huge hit.  a.

By pamelalovis | Posted in Colossal squid | Also tagged , | Comments (0)

Bubbles in the system

18 December 2008 – 12.52pm

There are bubbles in the colossal squid tank!!! It’s not what we intended and we know that they may be interfering with your view of our big squid.

So why are the bubbles there and why can’t we get rid of them?

It’s not that easy to answer – you have to know a bit about the physics of bubbles, and what happens when you mix liquids which have dissolved gases in them. Te Papa’s Conservator Robert Clendon has been trying to explain it to me this morning, but my physics is a bit rusty – anyway here goes.

The tank that the squid is in contains a liquid mix of glycol and water. This is a preservative to stop the squid specimen from rotting. With a liquid that has dissolved gases in it the gas will start to come out and form bubbles. The bubbles then tend to stick to any tiny rough bits, or abrasions. Surprisingly enough the surface of the thick, acrylic lid of the tank is covered in these microabrasions. When you mix glycol and water together (as we’ve done) the water can’t hold as much dissolved air and bubbles start to form.

Usually we would leave the glycol and water mix for a good length of time to allow the bubbles to escape. When we first put the squid in the tank, filled it up and put the lid on there were hardly any bubbles at all – it was perfect!

However we had a problem with the tank at the last minute – one day before opening. We had to lift the lid off the tank, fix the problem and then top up the liquid. Time was against us to make the opening on Saturday and as a result…. we’ve got bubbles.

The bubbles are sitting under the curved lid of the tank. The small bubbles are gradually joining together (coalescing) to make bigger bubbles. When the bubbles are big enough they run off to the side of the tank and escape through the built-in tank vents.

The tank does have an internal pump system but it is very gentle as we don’t want to disturb the squid specimen too much. Robert is confident that the bubbles will go – but slowly. After all the whole tank and squid display is experimental and we are learning a lot through the process.

We’ll be watching the bubbles situation over the Christmas period and if it doesn’t improve we have a plan…. a cunning one.

By pamelalovis | Posted in Colossal squid | Also tagged , , , | Comments (2)
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