Black Box Golf

Make files, instructions and details of a Science & Technology Studies Crazy Golf hole for Full Of Noises 2019 in Barrow Park, Barrow-in-Furness

Premise

Black Boxing is where a very complicated technology (like a computer or a bank) effectively becomes a box hiding how it really works: all we know as black box users is we put something in and expect something to come out. Most of the things we use every day can be seen like this. We thought it would be fun to think about a black box on a golf course.

Science studies is a really useful way of thinking about how science affects society. In Barrow in Furness we can see many ways that science affects our social world; BAE relies on some of the more problematic of scientific developments (weapons & defence) but has a big affect on the local socio-economic world, while many coastal and agricultural sciences have a big role in the town through local industry and agriculture.

To cite Science Studies scholar Bruno Latour, blackboxing is "the way scientific and technical work is made invisible by its own success. When a machine runs efficiently, when a matter of fact is settled, one need focus only on its inputs and outputs and not on its internal complexity. Thus, paradoxically, the more science and technology succeed, the more opaque and obscure they become." ¹

It's also good at not just thinking about big global science issues but how things work locally. We wanted to use the golf course as a space to think about how hidden non-human creatures like algae live really close to us, despite living in quite a tightly controlled industrial and agricultural environment. Generally we're too busy surviving in our social worlds to stop and think about tiny creatures, but some family time playing crazy golf might be a nice easy way to think about microbiology. Though of course the important thing is to complete your game in as few shots as possible; and if you follow our black box activity instructions carefully we might help you win and learn about the microscopic world of algae and how scientists use model organisms!

A model organism is a non-human species that is extensively studied to understand particular biological phenomena and provide insight into the workings of other more complicated organisms. Once these things are established in science the model organism is a bit like a black box and scientists use them to test things a bit like we might use a sensor to turn on an outdoor security light.

What the black box does

A player's ball enters a compartment in an acrylic black box from a short run and is held within the structure and only released after the 'success' or 'failure' of a condition. A 'success' triggers the ball's release down another run advantageous to the player's next hole, while a 'fail', releases the ball somewhere not to the players advantage, ie away from the next hole

The success or fail is triggered by 2 physical buttons that a human judge can operate. It is arduino based and will run from a rechargeable 3V-5V USB battery pack

Players act out instructions provided on the box on the day, that fellow players, friends or family judge whether they deserve a success or fail. They have to be honest or they can cheat; it's up to the players.

The black box can be deployed as a kit for future crazy golf at Barrow Park and the conditional system can change each time.

Like much of the tech we all depend on, this hole promises alot, but ultimately provides very little; obscuring hidden communities of humans and non-humans who maintain the infrastructures they depend on.

How it all works is hidden in the shiny black box and we don't really need to know all the hard work that has gone into it for it to work in our golf game. If you do need to know you can find instructions here

Black Box activity

Players judge the true/YES or false/NO button press based on observing algae in specially prepared microfluidic environments on microscope slides using Manu Prakesh's Foldscopes made at the Prakesh Lab for 'frugal science'. It might lead to you dressing up as algae, what we call "Euglena Cosplay"

Euglena Cosplay

Euglena Cosplay is the activity used to self-certify true/YES or false/NO conditions in the black box.

• Enter golf ball into box
• Observe Euglena down Microscope Alley with pre-prepared Foldscopes or failing that on the model organisms webpage
  • They observe Euglena in silicon microfluidic channels moulded from the grooves of Cumbrian charity shop records, a method for model organism observation developed by microbiologist, biotechnologist and engineer Alexandre Benedetto inspired by an article in The Worm Breeders Gazette
  • Wear a Euglena costume and mime their behaviour
  • If you're too embarassed just do mime!
• Get judged by co-players
• Hit true or false buttons
• Golf ball released:
  • true: easy access to next hole
  • false: Down a camping stove/ recycled PLA windshield maze

Cheating

Of course it's up to you to negotiate the complex social world of someone cheating at Crazy Golf; you could choose to do that and ignore our tiny green friends or the brilliant engineerinf behind foldscopes and go straight to a hole-in-one. But you might miss out experiencing some interesting local science techniques.

How To Build

In quite the opposite spirit to black boxing, read the basic guide to build it yourself. Arduino abstractions of C++, how capacitors, pull up resistors, ground referencing etc work alongwith 300 years of microscopic practice and the physics of ball lenses remain in the black boxes we need them to be in to play this kind of non-human observing crazy golf.

References

• 1. Bruno Latour (1999). Pandora's hope: essays on the reality of science studies. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. 304.