Filings – an interactive system between filings and magnets

This is a project that I had developed for the Robotic Ecologies class that I am currently taking at the University of Virginia Architecture school. The assignment is to design a small robotic system that could be used to produce sounds. I became greatly interested in magnetic filings and its movement of interaction with magnets. The design of the system is simple — four bars of magnets are suspended above a tray containing nine separate circular containers of filings. The magnets are placed in positions to propel against each other, in which as the magnets move across the filings, the filings forms different movement and different patterns inside the dish. Sounds are generated by putting contact microphones under the dishes to record the sound of the movement of the filings by contact. The following video documents the study of the movement of the filings ( filmed and edited  by yours truly):  As you see, the filings produce interesting movements and patterns as the magnets sweeps through the grid. The sound is surprisingly interesting as well.