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Copywriter Ant-ics
I love my ant farms. Yes, farms as in plural. And I’m not talking about the old Milton Bradley ones from the 50’s that were flat, filled with white “sand” and with the plastic farmstead on top.
No, I’m talking about the Antworks habitat developed by NASA. Cool, space-age design, blue gel that serves as tunneling medium, food and water.
Developed by NASA for their Space Shuttle experiment to study and test how ants tunnel in microgravity, they first had to solve problem #1: how to make the existing tunnels in the habitats and the ants survive the 3G’s of the launch?
Not only that, once they’re in zero G’s, how do you open the habitat to feed and water the ants without exposing the inside of the craft to floating sand?
Simple. Make the tunneling medium, the food and the water all part of the same stuff — and voila, blue gel that is all three! That’s why the Antworks habitat is problem-solving at its most creative. It’s a very ant-like solution because they can tunnel and eat at the same time. Sometimes they carry the debris to the top, sometimes they eat it while they’re carrying it and sometimes they eat and dig at the same time.
Read the more in-depth story here and discover why Time magazine featured it as one of its “Best Inventions of 2005.”
I use the Antworks habitats as visual metaphors/reminder for work and life. The ants are always working on their objectives and producing results. And at the end of the day, that’s pretty good visual reminder of how to play the game of life. They do rest, but they never stop. And I like that reminder. I have one in my office and another on the mantle above the fireplace.
A year ago I was given the regular AntWorks product as a Christmas gift from “The Redhead” (btw, that’s the girlfriend’s new nickname here because one of you called her “the gf” and she balked and how generic that was).
Anyway, long after the more expensive gifts were lying unused and near-forgotten, my AntWorks habitat was still the focus of attention because it continued to provide unending hours of observing a part of nature that is hidden to most of us because ants can tunnel up to 15 feet below ground!
Now there’s the latest addition to the Antworks line: AntWorks “Tunnel Vision” where you can link up multiple habitats. It ups the ante (pun accidental, but acknowledged) on stoking curiosity and scientific inquiry by seeing how the ants react to an entire new habitat to explore after they’ve tunneled out the original habitat.
That’s iteration #2. In iteration #3, I’ll be connecting up two inhabited habitats to observe their reactions. Will they war? Will the “girls” (all worker ants are female) cooperatively work together? Based on what I’ve seen so far, I’m betting the latter.
And while a Google search will turn up a lot of places to buy an Antworks habitat, becuase of their stellar customer serivce and curiosity-provoking name, I buy all my gear from Fat Brain Toys. How could you not love a name like that?
Oh . . . and get the Illuminator. The habitats are a lot less interesting without one.
By Walter |
Topics: Inside The Mind, It's A Good Thing |