*sigh*

Chris Burden

Metropolis II

on view at 

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Check out the Daily Mails story.

Never enough hours in the day...

So many things I would like to build and I never stop coming across projects I would like to give a go,
and here is another....




Speaking of engines animatedengines.com 

They Don't Make Cars...

I'm not the biggest fan of new cars mostly because nobody is making anything terribly iconic. The most iconic thing on cars is (was) the hood ornament. The "Leaping Jaguar," the Mercedes Benz three point star, or the Big Horn Ram that used to be on Dodge trucks all great icons that helped to define the car. They pop off the hood of the car and say "I am a Dodge, and I am strong and tough," or "I am fast, sleek, and fierce. I am a Jag."

That is gone now... I'm sure there are reasons.

 Oh Right, I made my own. 

I'll let it get some weather on it and then clear coat it.
In the short run when the gasket maker sets that will all get cleaned up.
Also go here to check out some great images of classic hood ornaments, when chrome ruled.

Embrace Your Inner Redneck

... I have.

Made this bench from the tailgate of my '88 Toyota Pick-Up.

Doing Stuff

My day was not the greatest on record but I did hall a cement mixer.

Trash to Land

Overview

We already now that there is a patch of plastic in the Pacific Ocean at lest the size of Texas, as well patches in the Indian Ocean and the North Atlantic Ocean. The question is what to do with the floating waste in the world’s oceans. Clean up would be a massive under taking and require more resources than could be feasibly provided. There is also the problem of stopping the flow of the waste, and say we clean it up it will start collecting again as soon as clean up is “finished.”  Instead of looking at the piles as waste they should be viewed as a resource. 

Proposal

There are more raw materials available floating in the sea and one might know what to do with. We know that the properties of plastic are conducive to long term exposure to salt water and other conditions at sea as well as its buoyancy.  If we view this plastic as resource then use the plastic to create Very Large Floating Structures (VLFS) on site.

With heat and pressure blocks could be created, at sea, then used as a foundation for floating structures. By creating interlocking blocks at see there would be little need to bring other construction materials to the site, in the initial phase.

A modified fishing vessel or other ship with large deck areas would be used to collect the plastic and form the blocks while another ship would be used for the placement of the blocks

Proof of Concept

The Mega-Float was an airport runway in Tokyo Bay that proved to be unfeasible but was tested with air craft. While Mega-Float may not be in use now the construction of the 1000m runway proves that structures of this size can be made and used, maybe not for runways.

Richart “Rishi” Sowa on the Caribbean coast of Mexico south of Cancun created Spiral Island, the base of the 3,600sqft manmade island was made up of 250,000 plastic bottles. The Island supported a two-story house and wells as a 23-foot tall mangrove tress. Hurricane Emily destroyed the original Spiral Island in 2005 when it was run aground. The 4,000sqft Spiral Island II contains around 100,000.

Uses

-Military Base              -Research Station/ Lab

-Air Field                     -Resort

-Docks                         -Staging Area

-Living Spaces             -Layover Location

 

Problems That Might Arise

The design of the blocks requires finding way to make them consistent. When collecting the plastic from the ocean the mix of the types of plastic will not be consistent and the density of the blocks would change based on the collected materials.

The weather is a constant factor when working on the high seas. It would be especially challenging in the early phases of the project but at some point the critical mass of the structure will start to minimize the effects of the weather.

There is the probability that the structure may not hold together in the way planned and would require fastening to keep it stable.

Phased Construction

Phase 1- Construction the base platform

            Part 1- Ship picks up the plastics

            Part 2- Plastics crushed and formed into blocks

            Part 3- Blocks assembled on deck

            Part 4- The larger block is dumped for collection

            Part 5- Second Vessel collects blocks and moves them to the site

            Part 6- The blocks are used to form the base

Phase 2- Creating usable spaces on the surface of the floating structure

Phase 3- Expansion and Use

References/Sourcing
 
Ocean Garbage Patches
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_Garbage_Patch
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Garbage_Patch
        http://green.yahoo.com/blog/greenpicks/286/new-garbage-patch-discovered-in-indian-ocean.html

Very Large Floating Structures
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_large_floating_structure
Mega-Float
        http://www.mlit.go.jp/english/maritime/mega_float.html
        http://www.srcj.or.jp/html/megafloat_en/index.html
Spiral Island
       http://www.spiralislanders.info/about.html
       http://ecoble.com/2007/11/18/250000-bottles-amazing-recycled-mexican-island-paradise/
       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_Island
Recycled Island
       http://www.recycledisland.com/
Other
      http://www.deltasync.nl/deltasync/index.php?id=1&L=0
      http://www.delta.tudelft.nl/nl/archief/artikel/shoebox-at-sea/20630
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk


Authors Note
This idea comes out of my reading, research, personal experiences, and projects I have done re-purposing objects. I welcome any feed back.

E.V. 1

Mix Media

(Steel, 18v Motor, Modified Bike Frame) 

I came across an image of a motorized bicycle with a small engine and a soda bottle for a gas tank. I wondered how that bike might change if it was created in a different context, with different technologies available to create something similar.  

My context is that of home made (EV’s) electric vehicles, motorcycles as wells as other DIY projects. I wanted to redefine an electric bicycle while still keeping it in the realm of the bicycle. By modifying the frame, removing the pedals, and creating a new seat the bike is recreated while still retaining the identity of a bicycle.

untitled

Going Somewhere

Gifts (1)

My sister being the youngest of four rarely got new things, lots of stuff around the house got passed down to her with out much thought.
So for her birthday this year I passed down the bike that was collecting dust in the garage.
Oh right, I gave it a face lift.
(Some how I forgot to take the before pictures.)

Life is in the Details.

I replaced the break lines and what not to make it work as best as I could. Give more time and something resembling a plan, it would look sweet if the spokes were also black.

Flying Machine...

I am currently working on
THIS!!!

"Flying Machine" inspired by the Hiller Flying Machine (VZ-1 Pawnee).
It's a 4 h.p. Craftsmen lawn mower engine mounted on to a fiberglass (and foam armature) with steel.

I glassed the steel on to the foam armature with lots of shrink wrap to hold it in place.

I still need to make a "propeller" and give the engine a tune up and once over.
More body work needs to be done as well glassing as well as bondoing and the paint job that will finish it.

No, I do not expect it to fly I do however what it to feel like it might at any second lift of the ground. I will be satisfied with it shaking and making lots of noise with out moving much.

On an other note I am happy that I am remembering to document the building of stuff (sometimes when I think of it). Camera phones help very much.

Art meet Engineering

Monsterbike / Wouter van den Bosch from Novalis on Vimeo.

Pic here.

Tatra T-87

I have been working at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts since October and one of the best things in the collection is the is the Tatra T-87 sedan.

Image Link

I get more questions about the car than an other "work" in the museum, so I did some digging for information about the car. So here is what I know it was designd 1936 and put in to production through to 1950 and around 3,000 where made. It has a reare mounted air cooled V8 engine with the gas cap under the hood in the front. The Czechoslovakian made car was popular with the German Officers in WWII but Hitler banned it after two many officers where killed driving it.

Rumor has it that the battery and stater motor have been removed from the car at the MIA but it came with a crank start along with many other goodies like extra spark pugs and an oil can.

Take a look a what Jay Leno has to say about his.




http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z9132/Tatra-T87.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatra_T87

Sea of Tranquility

The Moon Landing forty years ago.

and
Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage on CNN this morning talking about the "Moon Myths"

The launch of Apollo 11

The video of the launch of Apollo 11 forty years out.

Minnesota Wins

UMNSVP - Centaurus

The University of Minnesota won the 2009 Formula Sun Grand Prix, in both amount of laps and fastest lap. The U's Solar Vehicle Centaurus did 487 laps over the three days as well as the fastest lap time 0:02:20 on a 1.7 mile track. Check the full results here.
The Star Tribune has an article here.
The University of Minnesota Solar Vehicle Project web page, twitter, and flicker.
The team has started work on Centaurus II.
Solar cars always seem to look like something out of the future a weird UFO or something.

flying cars

Gotta love Top Gear (even if it was on CollegeHumor).

Watch Car Darts and more funny videos on CollegeHumor

Hoaxtel

The hotelicopter a flying cruise like experience with queen size beds a jacuzzi, sauna and the SkySpa all rapped up in the largist helicopter ever made, the Soviet Mil V-12. Dave Demerjian over at Wired gave the full run down of the hoax. If it was supposed to be an April fools gag, nothing like getting a head of your self, notice the time stamp on the wired storyMarch 30, 2009 | 3:46:34 PM.

The only surviving Mil V-12 is the top photo and the modified V-12 for the Hotelicopter. That is almost double the the size of the original.
www.hotelicopter.com

As an idea I think its a great one a nice comfortable way to travel that goes back to to the zeppelins of the pre-WWII and the Hindenburg. The folks over at Lockheed Martin have developed an airship, that reminds me of the USS Los Angeles, developed for the us army's project Walrus, the P-791 zeppelin that can hull between 500-1000 tons with a range of 12,000 nautical miles. It could be redesigned to be a cruise ship in the sky.

A small test prototype is set to be tested some time in the near future about the cargo space of a C-130, about a quarter scale test. Once again I have to tip my hat to those that work in the coolest place that I will never get to visit the Skunk Works.

The Hotelicopter - The World's First Flying Hotel! from Alvin Farley on Vimeo.
After watching that clip how could you believe that that was a test flight.

It's like Sea Lab... kinda

The Sea Orbiter was designed by Jacques Rougerie, a French architect, to be a floating laboratory to help gain a better understanding of the oceans. The almost 3/4 of the planet is water/ the ocean and we have very little understanding of that vast chunk of this blue ball.



"True mobile oceanographical base, this vertical vessel drifts in the currents hosting 18 oceanautes who will observe the life of the oceans on a permanent basis.
Marine life will naturally agregates under its hull."- Jacques Rougerie


It stands about 170 ft tall with about 2/3 under the water line. It is designed to house a crew of 18 and has acesses to the ocean under the water line and is power solely by the ocean currents.

The design was tested in Norway by Marintek and the design was sound and will stay up right even in bad weather. (See the video on the site.) It reminds me of a bobber sitting on a lake when I go fishing.


The Sea Orbiter is a great example of form meeting function.
Check out the project web site.

Jacques Rougerie's designs have a great retro futurism feel, the Sea Orbiter intended to be put to use by 2010.
Check out his work here.

Honda

Honda The Power of Dreams from micheledauria on Vimeo.

Michele D'Auria beautiful animation and story telling about the founding of the Honda Motor Company. I have to say that I am a fan of Honda. I have a '78 Honda CB400, great bike.