I woke this morning to find an article on the TimeCycle on the front page of the Free Press this morning. (http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20090826/NEWS02/90826002) It’s a great article.. it shows the machine and the team.. and the challenges we have in getting the thing out to nevada by next week.  

I love Homers message in the video that went with the story. The irony for me is that  in some sense , the project has been anything but joy to me.. I’ve managed to spend a good portion of my summer working on the lights which has been frustrating technically.. and now I’m not goign to burning man. On the other hand, i take real pleasure in knowing that I dragged Homer into this project as well as chris c and seth.. and all of them have had really good experiences. I’m hoping that we get this machine done  and out there and they have a blast. That will make it all worthwhile.

Closer to home we have another big project going, Max’s earthen oven is coming along really well we have been keeping a small fire in it all afternoon to dry out the dirt in prep for the next insulating layer…

Hey.. what’s this ?! 🙂

Not much else to report.. Oh, yes.. one more thing. I was interviewed for a ZDnet  podcast today. I just got a link to the podcast.. it’s got some good background on the show if anyones interested..

Eeek.  only 2 minutes of battery left.. gotta end here. Gnite all.. Gnite Sam
-me

Oy.. 1AM after another long and busy day.. very productive work day from 8 till 6 then three events afterwords..   First stop was the VOMIT (Vermont’s Own M. I. T.) club meeting at Good Times Cafe in Hinesburg.   I couldn’t stay but I did feel the need to stop by so we could toast the memory of our good friend and fellow MIT Club officer. John I/ John passed away about 2 weeks back after a long illness.. he was in his 80’s. John was a brilliant and eccentric man.. which can be said about most of the MIT grads I’ve ever met.   That said, John was more of both / John taught me how tree sap flowed and why certain bugs had such rigid sex organs.. He was a specialist in many things.. none of them normal things.. A great epitaph if I’ve ever heard one.. Here’s to you John.. I hope you have a good machine shop wherever you are now.

From there I headed out to David D’s for one of the last days on the burning man vehicle.. we’re down to the wire now.. the car has got to ship out on Thursday.. Friday at the latest in order to make the opening of the burn. Things are going well.. but there’s still a ton to do. I went to train   Dave who’s going to work with Carly on the lighting out on the playa..    I also went to finish the documentation and check out what still needed doing in the wiring. David D just finished the commutating connector hubs that will allow us to get 110Volts AC to the wheels.. These use the very cool mercury filled rotating passthroughs that I found.

There was a ton of activity and people there tonight.. people dodging forklifts, dodging falling parts.. lots of guitar playing and beer drinking.. it was almost like burning man.. but without the sand.

I did a walk through with Dave on the lights.. they were looking pretty cool toniht. I hope they’r erobust enough to work on the playa !

around 9 I took leave of the burners and headed up to Avery’s for our weekly fix of the colony.   The crouwd has been growing every week.. this time there were about 30 folks.. most of them kids. It’s awesome watching the show with them.. Tonight’s show was pretty good.. as always .. it’s what you don’t see that’s so interesting to me. It was hard watching the part about George leaving.. It brought back sad memories.. I’m sure folks are wondering why it really made us sad… after all.. we knew he wasn’t dead.. the trouble was.. he really was here one moment and gone the next. George was our glue guy.. he kept folks talking to one another and smoothed out many of the interpersonal problems in the group. He was the ‘perfect’ person to spirit away because his departure left the biggest emotional gap.. I’m not sure that viewers could understand the bond we had given what’s been shown up to now.

There were some other funny things about the show.. I like the way they treated the transmitter.. it’s a very complicated build.. but they kept in the most important parts.. I hope that didn’t bore too many folks. They did use a little license in editing.. I really did blow out the inverter fans with my first test.. but we were only without power for 45 minutes.. and that was during the day.. the implication that we spent a night without power was not quite right.. though we did have such nights when our fuel was running low pre-solar panel.   One thing I remember about that whole scene is how well mike kept his cool and helped me fix the problem I caused. At that point our technical relationship was really starting to work..  

I was also really glad to see that Morgan got to show her diode radio receiver.. The cool thing is that both the receiver and the transmitter actually worked !!!!   We actually had to be careful when we had mikes near the receiver. We had to tune carefully  because we were picking up a bunch of spanish and korean stations near the low end of the AM dial. Annother funny story:.. I originally sent out the SOS message that Leilani had written for me..”SoS, SoS, SoS, We are Colony. In need of food, water, security… blah. blah. blah …”  A  few days later it dawned on me that i was really transmitting.. so that sending a true distress message in code might be a bad thing to do. From that point on I sent a different message everyday about 4 times. It was  “Katherine is locked in warehouse, please send Rum.. ” (Katherine was one of our story producers)

We finally got home around 12:30.. I couldn’t wait to see Max’s clay oven.. He was nearly done with the first layer.. It was SO cool !

OK , I absolutely need to sleep now. my eyes keep closing.. more tomorrow friends. Nite all, Nite Sam !
-me

David was also helping me today with the power distribution.. Here are the tiny mercury filled rotating contacts that will allow us to get 110 Volts AC out to each of the wheels.

Here’s the 40 horse diesel motor, the hydrolic pump and our alternator.

Mark and I were working to get the power from the inverter down through the axels.. that meant drilling into the clockwork…

Still, while < I have the lights running in one of the sheds.. I want to see if the stuff will last , So far so good . I went around today and labeled every connection necessary to run the thing.s.. there are a ton !

Giant Tim  doesn’t seem all that large when your purched up in the ‘clockworks’ of the machine.

Tim did bring some wonderful sourdough rye for us to munch on . It was made by the founder of Bread and Puppet.. it tasted the same as the bread they served for bread and puppet ! !

Homer’s overflowing with excitement and enthusiasmat this point.. I love seeing him so happy and fulfilled !

I hhad to leave Davids around 3L30 since we ha soem family projects we wanted to do.. One of them was to start making Diane and Max’s new mud oven outside. Diane , Gabe, Max and I spent an hour or so packing sand into the wholes in the cinder blocks.

We were running a bit low on sand, so we decided to add filler. Beer bottles are good isolation.   Of course we also needed to add a SamStone.

We packed the stuff down and then added the pavers to get a level surface

It took is a while to get every thing flat and that point.. but we did..   then Max place the firebrick

This oven will be made out of baked mud.. I can’t wait to see how it comes out..   I can tell you that the muffin sized oven held together pretty well.. When max tried to destroy it with a firecracker it showed just how strong it is !

Around 6 we knocked off and got washed up.. We all voted for ‘Asian bistro’ a Chinese / sushi place in Tafts’ corners.. before we entered.. Diane ‘invited’ us leave our cell phones in the car.. It was hard.. but we all managed to make it work. We all become so connected all the time.. it was wonderful not to all be staring at tiny screens !

Dinner took a bit long to arrive, so Gabe showed us his telekinetic powers !  Strange.. no ?

OK. I can hardly stay awake right now.. Here’s hoping for a more balanced week. coming up ..we’ll see.  Hope all of your are well .. Gnite folks. nite love
-me

Man.. I’m beat.. I stayed up last night ’till 3L30 determined to get the lights for the time cylce workinng.. I’ was ready to give up around 11.. but I took a break, blogged.. and cleared my head… That gave me the clarity to jump back in and sort out the next layer of problems. My struggle was with eh poor quality of the components I’d ordered from China.. they were beautiful when they worked.. but every small moveent of the strips caused a few of the solder connections to the tiny chips to break. I ended up doing ‘bypass’ surgery on many of them.. I soldered jumpers around them.. But the tuime I went to bed near four.. all of it was working. I managed to sleep until 1L30 which was really wonderful…
   I woke rested.. but still had much to do before headign over to David D’s house to install the lights.. Once again I spent 80 percent of the day working on this @$# kighting porject and NOT hanging with my family, relaxing, exercising, etc..
I’m sad to have devoted so much time to fixing these lights.. Max is only here for another week.. I need to find time to hang with him and to go campong with Gabe..  I love my family so much.. why do I let myslef get so distracted from them sometimes ?

Anyway.. I worked on the light strips, lasers, power supplies and wiring harness until about 3.. It felt very good to make that last solder connection..  
 
I packed everythign up and headed down o bristol .. THere were about 6 folks there still working.. The Timecylce is really an amazing thing to see now.. 20 feet high , 3 tons (I’m guessing) / Homer and crew are still working like crazy to see if they can finish the vehicle before Wednesday when they have to leave. They still need to add the hydrolic motors !

I hadn’t seen the device for about a week since I’d been working on the lights with Seth here at our house. The progress was amazing. The thing looked exactly like the model homer had made.. and like the drawings he’d made. It’s so very amazing to see somethign this big and real jump from someones imagination into reallity.. I think that’s why we all make things.. It’s an existential thrill like no other. .. to make something appear from nothing !

While hthe mtors aren’t installed yet, were able to push the thing pretty easily. It’s amazingly easy to move by hand given its size.

Here’s the 40 Horsepower diesel engine that will run the hydrolic pump and the alternator

I spent the first few hours tie wrapping the plastic encapsulated led strips to some 5/16 inch rolled steel stock.. This will define the arc of the ligths and keep the strips form bending.   THey looked good as we worked !

At around 8 I couldn’t resist the urge to test mount the strips. David used the forklift to lift the wheel and allow me to rotate it so I could put n the light strips. The whole process took only 20 minute

The end effect was awesome.. Sorry this is only my phone’s camera.. it doan’t really cpature the impact of these lights..

Around 9 I started back home. I’m so happy to be nearing the end of the poroject.. It’s been fun.. but I need my life back.. I hope the the stuff remains robust for the next  couple of days .. We’ll just have to see…

Right now I just have to see my pillow.. More tomorrow’s folks.. thanks for dropping by.. Gnite all.. Gnite Sam !

-me