Cheer box ("Jubelbox")

(Deutsche Version)

Cook: mirwi
Companion feed back device for the HEX-BIN-Trainer (german, not translated yet).

The amazingly simple but captivating basic concept of the cheer box: Silhouettes of cheering people with raised arms, made from coloured tissue paper, fidgeting in an air flow from below.
So, what's so great about it then? It is almost archetypically cute to look at, nothing more. As part of our exhibition at Zwickl 2014, the „Jubelbox“ managed to paint a smile on everybodys face. Independent whether they were interrested in the rest of the persented items or not. Even we ourselfs were not able to refrain from triggering it over and over again during times, where there were no spectators. Does it take more justification than that?

The cheer box is the ideal device to convey the ideas of tinkering and creativity. Due to it's simplicity, really everybody can grasp it's inner workings. In spite of that, the actual implementation still can spread an aura of ingenuity or at least be recognised as something uncommon or special.

Our incarnation of the cheer box lives inside of a cardboard shoe box. It's long side is divided by a wall comprising two 120mm 12V fans. There is some additional padding at the samll sides to fill the gaps. The fans are run at their nominal 12V suppply, resulting in ample air flow. The noise they produce under these conditions, is declared a feature which also serves the purpose of attracting attention. This worked very well and any initial thoughts about generating additional „cheer sounds“ could be discarded.

One broad side of the box is delared „front“, with the air flow coming from the back side. The lid of the box is used to extend the fan wall, either straight upwards or at some backwards angle. Thus preventing the air from immediately being sucked back, as soon as it has passed the fan.

The cheering bodies are placed in two rows right above the air outlet, which is the space between the fans and the front side. At their feet, the bodies are reinforced with adhessive tape. Two little holes punched in each foot with a needle or sharp pliers, allow a thin twine or, in our case, some enamelled wire, to be threaded trough. The two twines or wires are then pulled taught over the air outlet and are secured in holes punched trough the upper bortders of the right and left walls of the card board box. Make sure there is enough space between all items, to allow comfortable air flow and free movement.
Done!

Basically a very gentle blow already is sufficient to keep the cheerees up in the air. This becommes apparent when turning the device off and it takes the fans to almost come to a total stand still, untill everything collapses. With the fans going at full speed, the cheer dance might appear quite violent. However, with the box sitting on the table, the produced sound is less impressive compared to what we had at the exhibition. There, the box was with the back side taped to a staircase and was otherwise unobscured and thus able to resonate freely with all vibrations.