Using Light To Our Advantage

In my STEAM course Light, Sound, and Time we went over light and how it affects our everyday life. We learn about the human eye, time, light rays and the power of the sun. The course begins by reading a book of our choosing and after we read and we share a lesson plan with our class. This engaged classmates and challenged one another to think deeper. We learned about the properties of light and how it acts both as a wave and a particle. Later, we spent time discovering the electromagnetic spectrum and experimented with the visible light spectrum. We did this by using a prism and focusing light at the center of it. During our short course, we noticed how similar the human eye and cameras are. So after experimenting with the idea our teacher gave us, the assignment to design our Pinhole Camera, we actually went on an FE to a dark room at Truman College. There, we got our pictures processed in a dark room and learned the thorough process of making an original picture. We had to take our light-sensitive paper from the box and place it in 3 chemicals. First, we put in developer, fixer, and stopper. After we washed the picture, we dried it and took it home. Below are images of my Pinhole Camera that I made out of a tea box.

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Step by step process of building it

• Collected materials for the camera, these included (Cardboard box, Tape, Black paint, Aluminum can
• Cut out a tiny hole in the middle( I used a pen for this)
• Paint the entire box black. Either tape or paint
• Cut out a square piece from the aluminum can; Keep it as flat as possible
• Make pinhole by using a thumbtack and putting it through the aluminum
• Tape your aluminum onto the very small precise hole
• To make a shutter you can cut out a square piece of cardboard and tape over the hole
• Use a closet as a darkroom to add your light-sensitive paper with the glossy side up with tape on the bottom
• Close your shutter and make sure no light gets in 
• Now find something to capture and open the shutter for approximately 5 minutes

JNL- Math Calculations 2020

The first photo that I took on my pinhole camera developed, but looked more like a ghost than my object. At first, my object was a water bottle, but after going to the darkroom I changed my object to a tree. I think my camera was open for too long and had more exposure than I needed. At Truman, our guest generously helped us to make sure we didn't leave empty-handed. So we took at least three runs to capture some images, either by adjusting the amount of time we exposed our camera to light or to check if any light was getting through. I enjoyed learning about the process I thought it was pretty neat. A term that was brought up in our class was refraction. Refraction is the phenomenon of light and radio waves being deflected in passing obliquely through the interface between one medium and another or through a medium of varying density. It can change at different speeds and focus on certain parts of the eyes.

JNL 2020- Picture I took of a tree outside of Truman College

My Pinhole camera captured enough light through the shutter. The light captured flashes and reflects what I'm aiming at onto the light-sensitive paper. We painted our inner box black because white reflects and black absorbs. If it was white, there wouldn’t be a clear image of the photo I took. The black inside won't let any light through, so when you open the shutter a certain amount of light will come in and then close back up. The light that shines through acts as a wave, while also behaving like a particle because the light is made up of photons that can act like particles. 

To wrap things up, I think that this action project was pretty beneficial to learning more about light. We applied simple but complex lessons in class. Directly, to our pinhole cameras, it related to what we learned, which was a plus. I think to go forward another FE would be great and more experiments to get us more engaged. Learning about light this course was pretty unique and interesting.