PART I
My partner and I made our telegrams, then chose a Roman numeral–inspired code to work with. This presented a number of problems because there is, after all, a reason that the Roman numeral system has become more or less obsolete. Luckily we were constrained to the English Alphabet. Otherwise, we probably would have had to abandon the endeavor.
In any case, it was wonderful to look at the telegraph system and all the nuances. It was a sophisticated system and truly shortened the distance between people, thus I chose to visually represent it with a circle closing the loop.
Documentation
Above is a picture of my “Telegraph.” The wire wrapped around the nail and when the exposed ends connect to opposing ends of the battery, it creates a magnetic pull which draws the warped Plumber's tape (far left) towards the nail head. The connection creates a clanking noise. The bit of tape on the far right was created in response to a further challenge: “How might you create a way to connect the end of the wire to the battery without touching the wire?” Better documentation coming soon.
