The Micro Miniature Laboratory is about 3-1.2 inches wide…

It is filled with lab equipment made from watch parts and beads and bits from the bead store.

This is the box before it was furnished, with a penny to show the scale

Bugle beads make great test tubes and clear glass beads of varying sizes can be beakers.

A square metal charm with short nails makes a laboratory table

Small beading bits are excellent lampshades

And a screw and  bolt with bits from a watch make a good industrial laboratory sink

Here’s a close-up of the left side, with a ladder charm

Here’s the back lab bench

And here’s a closeup of the right side

And here’s the Micro Miniature Laboratory at Night!

The very first Miniature Natural History Museum was made as a stage set for an iMovie and still exists in Berkeley on Amador Ave

There are compasses that are smaller than dimes, and minerals and scales

And there are micro viewing bottles and small vials of mysterious substances from ‘Ago’

And there are butterflies and bell jars with several specimens

Along with some views of birds of the world…

And here are a couple of new acquisitions which will be coming to the Iowa City Museum:  A book of Natural History that is smaller than a quarter, and a small Chemistry Chart!

In another corner of the Berkeley Studio, there is this closed cabinet with the mysterious knobs—P and N, possibly for Paris and New York whose nocturnal images are painted on the doors.

Inside are two levels, each with a miniature light over the desk

The top level is the very first miniature laboratory, with many kinds of special blown glass, microscopes, a telescope, and bottles of chemicals.

The lower level is the scholar’s study, with a globe, chess set, miniature stereoscope, artist’s kit, box of cigars, and many different printed books including the Rights of Women in French on it’s own stand.

Debra attempted a very small scale replica of the wonderful Scissortail Flycatcher spotted at Sand Lake in late April.  You can gauge the scale against the Sharpie.  The state bird of Oklahoma, it was rare to see a scissortail flycatcher so far North.  We saw a solitary bird, but the bird books say they usually travel in “large, bickering flocks” when they migrate.  Perhaps this one just had enough of the bickering, already!  We are creating a habitat for it now.

.     

The Flycatcher has a remarkable long tail, and when it rises to fly, there is a flash of gorgeous bright orange-pink soft feathers under the wings..

Emily and Angie were able to work on the pond and layout for the large Serengeti diorama, where we are experimenting with the water pond effects (not yet shown) used by expert model railroad folks…

  
Apparently bouncing on Emily’s back helps Angie come up with brilliant design solutions!   Angie worked on some smaller dioramas of polar bears and the hedgehog family.

Angie is also at work on a fabulous confrontation between a wild boar and an American badger, while Emily is creating a new design top-down diorama showing two lynx having a territorial stand off in tall grass.  Photos of the finished dioramas to come.

At one point, a meerkat had to be pried from the jaws of the hippo, but both have lived to tell the tale…

We had a wonderful final walk on our secret path off of Clear Creek Trail, where the fallen log bridge is a highlight.  We will resume our diorama parties in the fall when Debra returns from California.

.

Xin wasn’t able to come that day as she was in the throes of final’s week, but she was there in calm and wonderful spirit.

With fun and warmest greetings from all the Diorama Divas of the Miniature Museum!

We have created a miniature Chladni Device for our Museum, based on the historic one designed by Ernst Chladni (1756-1827), the German physicist and musician.

Chladni found that by drawing a violin bow along a metal or glass plate covered with sand, that various regular patterns would emerge.   There is a fine replica of Chladni’s device at the Smithsonian Museum.  Ours is 1:12 scale, and uses a teeny tiny violin bow.

 The mathematical relationships of these fascinating patterns were taken up by the French mathematician Sophie Germain (1776-1831), shown below at age 14.  Germain was not allowed to attend classes at l’École Polytechnique because she was a woman, but she was able to obtain the lecture notes in advanced mathematics by using the pseudonym Monsieur Antone-August Le Blanc.  Her own mathematical discoveries, published under this name, gained the attention of other European mathematicians, most notably Carl Friedrich Gauss.

The patterns in sand emerge:

And are drawn and recorded:  they begin to form categories:

These can then be calculated for their geometric relationships:

 While our miniature Chladni Device is still being adjusted to try to make it actually work, we have taken great inspiration from Sophie Germain herself.  Sadly, she died at age 55 from breast cancer.  In her last years Germain was at work on a fascinating study of what she thought were the underlying metaphorical ideas that connect science, the humanities, and all of life.

We collect the specimens on our nature walks with Mr. Dog, then press them in a very cool new kind of press that goes in the microwave.  It takes only 45 seconds instead of a month and the color of the specimens are more true.  The tiny specimens are then attached to artist trading cards with glue and very thin strips of vellum, then labeled as to who, where  and when we found the plants.  We will soon be working with botanist who can help us verify our findings.

These are the strips of vellum which are even tinier than the slides!

And these are our most recent specimens, collected at Sand Lake, where we also saw an Amazing scissortail flycatcher–stay tuned, we’re making a diorama about that beautiful bird!

Tiny bookshelves with little books……..And a corridor in with bell jars awaiting their exhibits.

Inside the Specimen Room, tiny cases of butterflies and chiffoniers of minerals and shells.

And cabinets with doors holding mineral and shell specimens.

The tiniest specimen cabinets have itty bitty drawers smaller than a matchbook.

The butterflies were carefully cut from photographs of real butterflies printed on vellum.

The Specimen cabinet of eggs, shells and minerals,

each drawer is roughly the width of a quarter.  We made the eggs ourselves…and the shells are the smallest we could find.

We have attempted to identify the minerals and rocks, and will confirm what they are with the help of a geologist.

We have made the tiny nests on the tip of a chopstick.  The largest nest here is in the cap of an acorn, which resembles the nest construction of certain swallows.

There are tiny vials and jars, miniature instruments and test tubes, alembics and beakers.

And miniature microscopes and slides…

The miniature slides are made from actual slides of microbiological specimens, then reduced to the size of the moon on your fingernail and printed onto film and carefully cut out.  These are the slides before they have been reduced and trasnfered to film:

We have wondered why bacteria look so much like Cheetos, and the shapes of some viruses look like hard candies.  Science suggests things are not what they seem, so we have to look a bit harder to understand what it means…

Bacteria:

Viruses:

Then tiny boxes made of balsa wood are made to hold the miniature slides.

We fill the very tiny bottles and vials with substances that only look like the chemicals—trying hard to get the best color and texture according to our master chemistry chart.  We have raided the spice cupboard in doing so, and also made our own crystals from a kit.  Then we cut out very tiny labels and attach them to the bottles!

Now they are ready to go into the tiny cabinets!

Red Deer by D. L. Pughe        Squirrel and Owl by Angie Zirbes

Panda by Xin Xu                          Tigers by Emily Buck

Wolves by Angie Zirbes