A superior sonic screwdriver?

For the last five years, teams of 3 or 4 students in the second year laboratory have been required to undertake a collaborative consulting project. Although light-hearted, these projects are designed to mimic the type of open-ended industrial consulting tasks that they might meet upon graduation. Previous projects were for a hypothetical company, “MIRACLE foods”, and often involved measuring the physical constants of various confectionary items.

In 2005 the project involved measuring as many physical properties as possible of a reasonably complicated object; the so–called “alien artefact”. These objects had a complicated geometry and possessed internal electronics that would cause different coloured LED’s to illuminate when different voltages and/or frequencies were applied across the ends of the object. Some combinations could also produce sounds from the artefact.

Students were only told the following:

“5 of these devices have slowly materialised in a cupboard in the darkroom area at the back of the lab, each carefully wrapped in a towel. However, their function currently eludes us. Some suggestions have included:

• A highly improbable part of an Infinite Improbability Drive
• A container for concealing broken “non-core” promises
• A superior sonic screwdriver
• A highly sophisticated alien paperweight for weighing down highly sophisticated alien papers
• A device used to add the final olive to a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster

Preliminary results from other teams have indicated that they are not radioactive and there is no useful structure revealed by X-rays or NMR. Examination of the smouldering wreckage of laboratories studying other comparable alien artefacts indicate that safety considerations require that your studies have the following restrictions (a list followed).”

Students enjoyed the challenge of thinking about what could be measured, and how they might accomplish it. They came up with many intriguing possible uses for the artifacts; a common idea was that the artefact was an “alien multimeter” that could be used to measure DC and AC voltages, as well as frequency.

John Smith