Microfluidic Ballet -- by Albert Folch's lab (University of Washington, BioE dept., Seattle)

Here we present a microfluidic ballet to the music of Dimitri Shostakovich. The "dancers" of this ballet are seven streams of food-coloring dye controlled by microvalves (bottom of the image). The device operates essentially as a flow equalizer: each of the seven microvalves opens when the music volume exceeds a set threshold in a given band of frequency arbitrarily assigned to that microvalve. Flanking the microvalves is a constant background flow of colorless water, which keeps the colored fluids focused in separate streams. Due to a microfabrication defect, the microvalves leak fluid even when closed, but that produces a pleasant artistic effect. We have displayed the movie in negative tone to convey the ambiance of a theater at night.
-- Albert Folch, Associate Professor of Bioengineering, University of Washington, Seattle, USA (afolch@u.washington.edu).

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Microfluidics
• Music
• Shostakovich

[emilyhattie]

it's amazing

[folchlab]

@emilyhattie Thank you!

[alexanderhatface]

you guys are amazing, thank you all for sharing your research with us all with such artistic flare. us artists and you scientists / engineers should work together more. i think this is a brilliant leap forward in technology. keep up the good work.