After brainstorms, engineering, sketches and so on, between examinations and final dissertations about our integrated tests, little by little we fitted things together to come to a solution. Initially we considered to apply portable shovels in the beaker in order to pull the liquid along. By following resolutely that same idea we finally have left a cross-section of our beaker: simply a small rectangular container or vessel holding water. The thickness of the vessel has been kept small so that the water is instantly taking over the same rotation speed as the vessel. Thanks to the flat surfaces of a vessel in the shape of a beam, we may regularly have a picture of the not by refraction affected contents of our rotating water. Besides, by using this shape, we needn’t puzzle our brains about the splashing of the water.

But to our horror we realized that there was no more question of singing and this could not be true; the singing was an essential part of the experiment and should also be carried out in some way or another. That’s easier said than done, of course. Finally we also found a nice solution to that problem. So, just breathe hard into a bottle of soft drink for a while so that you let it sing. This experiment reveals to us that the pitch or frequency of the sound, depends on the quantity of drink left in the bottle as well. Our relief was great when experimenting it seemed to us that this was indeed very easy to carry out by making the central rotation axis hollow. The perforations made at the bottom of the axis, served the purpose of getting the water in the axis on a level with the water in the rest of the receptacle. How great it felt to hear those first sounds at various rotation frequencies: Our gravitation detector was singing and in every possible way!

The next months we were spending our time in making up a dossier, with all kinds of intensity calculations and other information. It was only the last month that we actually started performing the construction in practice, what entailed another entirely new experience and required a fair amount of inventiveness to accomplish things in time and keep them financially affordable with the simple means we had.

After having done the needed miles on our bikes from one local do-it-yourself shop to another, the experiment was quietly taking shape. A few days before our departure to Bordeaux, we have put the finishing touches to the computer interface and fixed the foam rubber for the protection of ourselves. People had made us believe that it’s more difficult to make movements in a state of weightlessness than in normal circumstances…