Intermediates - quirky contraptions on Transfiguration

Professor Skies

June 24, 2017 1:34 AM

Intermediates - quirky contraptions by Professor Skies

“Good morning,” Professor Skies greeted the intermediates, “Today, we are going to be exploring another of the alternative uses of Transfiguration.” The syllabus was peppered with these topics, which Selina had been upfront about explaining would not likely be on the CATS directly, although they could always cite them as examples in longer essay questions. This probably meant that a lot of the students were going to be tuning out, or focussing on other things during this class, especially as they’d got to the age where staring at each other had suddenly become an interesting and all-consuming pastime. However, she felt it was fair to be honest about what they would and would not need to study for the exams - they had enough pressure without trying to fruitlessly cram every last word of her lectures into their heads.

“Though for those of you not sitting major national exams, who knows what I might choose for your end of year tests,” she added, with a smile, hoping to make at least the third and fourth years give her a bit of their attention. The main reason she included these types of classes was to help allow students to make more informed decisions about their futures. There was such a wide variety of Transfiguration beyond the sometimes rather stuffy and traditional material that tended to come up in exams. When the students were choosing the options for their futures, she wanted them to know where their studies could actually take them.

“Today, we are studying mechanical transfiguration. It is a relatively new branch of the subject, and your homework will be to read about the field and write a short introduction to it. It is a field which attempts to make simple objects into more complex ones - to make machineries of various kinds. Today, we will be making simple toys into automata - that is, toys that are moved by cogs.” She pulled out a toy broomstick which had already been mounted on small wooden frame, as all the toys they would be using today had been. With a wave of her wand, she added a cog mechanism under the toy, connected to a handle which, when turned, made the little broomstick buck up and down as if it was being tossed around in high winds. Whilst she was able to conjure the cogs, the students would be provided with discs of differing materials to make theirs from.

“The spells for today’s class is ’Kuggera.’ Whilst you will be making your cogs individually, I hope you can see how this kind of class could be combined with skills in conjuring to open up many more exciting and complex possibilities. Along with the box, there’s a handout coming around explaining the different cog combinations you can try and the movements they will produce - it is important that you understand the effect that you are trying to achieve in order to make the mechanisms in mechanical transfiguration. Some of you may have the added challenge of transfiguring your toy - for example, if you have a solid figurine but you want to make a dinosaur that snaps, you are first going to have to create the moving part. A simple dislocation spell should work for that.” It was an inanimate to inanimate spell, used to break things down into their constituent parts, and well within the capabilities of all the intermediate students.

“You may begin.”

OOC - points for length, relevance, realism and creativity. You can all claim knowledge of the dislocation spell, and anyone who feels like coming up with the incantation for it is likely to earn a high number of points, but if spell names aren’t you jam, you can just say that they cast it without specifying any more about it.

Subthreads:

Sounds fun! by Kira Spaulding, Crotalus

And now for something completely different (Joe) by Tasha DuBois,Aladren

13 Professor Skies Intermediates - quirky contraptions 26 Professor Skies 1 5

Kira Spaulding, Crotalus

July 08, 2017 2:40 PM

Sounds fun! by Kira Spaulding, Crotalus

Mechanical Transfiguration was not an area Kira had spent a lot of time on. She had CATS this year and right now, was mostly working on theory stuff since in the classes she wanted to continue, she had the practical down pretty good and only really felt she needed to work on Potions.

So, Kira was eager to give it a try. Any sort of wandwork gave her great pleasure to do because it was the only area where she had any sort of confidence. It made her forget for awhile about all the times she was awkward and inferior which was basically the rest of her life.

And the fact that Kira was a fifth year now was a plus. She could do the hardest lesson because it was what was expected of her class now. She didn't have to feel like a show-off like she would have previously. The Crotalus knew full well what it was like to be on the other end of that and she didn't like it one bit. She didn't want anyone to feel like she did usually. Nor did Kira want them to resent her for it. More than anything, she just wanted to be liked and even though she had friends, she worried anyone not her friend or her cousin didn't really like her and/or thought they were better than she was. Granted, Kira was knew full well that Kelsey thought she was better than Kira was. She didn't say so outright but it was pretty evident.

At least though, it didn't seem personal. That Kira was the only person Kelsey thought she was superior to. It was just that from the fifth year's perspective, she was in a position where Kelsey was who she felt she was compared to often and unfavorably at that. It was just that Kelsey wasn't deliberately trying to pick on Kira specifically.

Which was easy enough to think when she was in a place where she shined like Tranfiguration. Her undisputed best class. It was much less easy to be magnanimous towards her cousin when they were at a ball when everyone was oohing and ahhing over Kelsey and all Kira wanted to do was hide. Rarely did anyone pay attention to her anyway. Part of her thought it for the best because she was totally awkward and was sure she would just make a negative impression , but part of her yearned to find someone who really liked her. Plus, the fifth year was supposed to find someone to be betrothed to and she was worried that it wouldn't happen at all. Kira couldn't help but be stressed out about it a good portion of the time.

Right now though, she was in her happy place and could forget how much she sucked everywhere else for awhile.The Crotalus took a look at the toy she had recieved. A dragon. Okay, she could totally work with this. There were wings to flap and a jaw that could snap, just like in the example Professor Skies had given about the dinosaur. It would be neat to do a fire effect too, but she didn't think that was a cog mechanism. That was a charm, which would be going beyond the assignment and thus, showing off. She could, however, make the legs move.

She decided to start with the flapping wings though. Kira looked over the materials, noting that she had some wood discs and some cloth ones and got started. "Kuggera." Before long, she had a pile of cogs and it was time to start applying them to the dragon.

11 Kira Spaulding, Crotalus Sounds fun! 320 Kira Spaulding, Crotalus 0 5

Tasha DuBois,Aladren

July 12, 2017 6:56 PM

And now for something completely different (Joe) by Tasha DuBois,Aladren

Despite the fact that Tasha missed traveling and eating exotic foods while at school, she really enjoyed all her classes. She didn't just love going to places her classmates would never think of going on vacation and eating pork stomach and inerja, she also adored learning. After all, she was an Aladren.

She didn't even have a favorite. Every single one of them kept her interest. Most people had things that they did and didn't like about classes, whether it was a particular subject or type of lesson, but Tasha was never bored in them. In fact, sometimes a particular topic in class would produce a tangential thought that she found fascinating and pursued until she either ran out of information or found something else. It rather sucked if the former happened first but even then it didn't take long until the latter did.

Right now, Tasha was considering learning another language. She already spoke English, French and Portuguese fluently and had an inkling of others but she wanted to get fluent in another one. It was just that there were so many and it was hard to pick! Tasha knew she wanted something different both in the sense of different than what she already spoke and different from what most people learned. Maybe something eastern European instead of western, or something from a different continent.

However, she had Transfiguration at the moment and the minute Professor Skies mentioned mechanical transfiguration, Tasha forgot all about foreign languages for the moment. This looked fun! Okay, transfiguration was usually fun or at least interesting. Theory work tended to be more the latter in general while practical was the former. This, however, was something different.

She listened closely to the lesson and picked a toy frog out of the box. Instantly, Tasha knew exactly what she was going to do with it. She was going to make it jump out at people. As she began transfiguring her materials, she turned to Joe. "What did you get?"

11 Tasha DuBois,Aladren And now for something completely different (Joe) 323 Tasha DuBois,Aladren 0 5