Sunday, March 30, 2008

Brain Bash 2 - More Lifter Action

(2/22/08)
On our second meeting, we revisited the lifters, and this time our attendees were:
* Giles
* Josh
* Cliff
* Aaron
* (no Lincoln)

In addition to flying the lifter that had successfully flown previously, we built new ones. Josh built a sturdy one with reinforced corners, Aaron built one entirely out of soda straws, and Cliff experimented with a cylindrical design. Giles explained the workings of his high power amplifier.

Video:


Notable changes from previous flights
One notable change occurred with Giles' power supply; the mosfet was replaced with one that pulsed. This seemed to increase the thrust dramatically, as we had seen mentioned on other websites, but without the capability to measure thrust, we do not yet know quantitatively to what degree this made a difference.

We also tried doubling the length of the tethers, but at this greater height, flight became unstable, and the lifter shorted against either itself or the guitar-stand crane rig (see video), and this blew out the power supply. As a result, no further flights were performed for the evening.

Other Ideas
Other ideas that were talked about included:
* My retro-MIDI box with Roland LAPC-1 and SCD-15 DB cards
BTW, Cliff's suggestion to swap the PS with a more powerful one worked!
* Cliff's Google website project (I'd like to know more!)
* The original project Orion nuclear propulsion concept

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