Initially, my goal in this project was to duplicate the experiment done by Alistair Steyn-Ross and Alister Ridell. Unfortunately, through future research, I discovered that the materials necessary are toxic. Because I would be using an appliance that also warms food, I decided that this might not be the best choice for my health. My next best option thus appeared to be thermal paper. This heat sensitive paper, I presumed, could be heated (actually the water that it soaked up)within the microwave, and hopefully a pattern of heat distribution could still be found. After testing various types of heat sensitive paper (please see Failed Attempts), fax paper appeared to work best.

Next, though, I still had to determine the time for which I would need to microwave each level. To do this I experimented in increments of 2 seconds. At first I reached 3 minutes and there still was no significant change in the paper. This perplexed me, though, because with the turn table inside the microwave dark spots had appeared within a few seconds. This caused me to hypothesize that one of the objects within the microwave could be effecting the heating. I then tried micro waving a sheet with the turn table and no glass platter and vice versa. When I microwaved with only the platter in, suddenly spots began to appear on the paper. I thus determined that the platter aids microwaving. I also calculated that for levels one through eight 4 seconds was needed to heat the paper, while on levels nine through twenty-four only 12 seconds was necessary.

The final problem that I had to solve was how I would be able to accurately find the 3D pattern. I decided to try using 1/4 inch thick cardboard squares, the same size as the paper, to elevate the heat sensitive sheets. This could be done on numerous levels. I also deduced, that this would not effect my results because one of the properties of microwaves is that they can pass through paper.