Fun end to a busy day.. I spent most of the day working on my talk.. again..   It still needs work.. but It’s getting there…    Elizabeth and Chris took off this morning Gabe went up to the mountain.. and Diane went to a meeting in the afternoon. ..so I had no excuse not to work. My plan was to go down to Middlebury to meet up with Homer.Whit and Nicole to see the final project of the flame arts class that Whit and Homer were teaching.  I was trying to get out of the house by 2.. but didn’t make it until 4.. .. It was just getting dark as I pulled into middlebury. The guys were just done filling up the last of the balloons with hydrogen they’d made by dumping aluminum foil in drano.. . They were going to use these balloons as targets..

I went down to the green (now very much white) and watched as they set up the propane accumulator.. It’s a very simple design that Whit has come up with. It’s an empty 40lb propane tank with the top valve replaced with a simple manifold which included 3 inlet lines from full propane tanks. one pressure gauge and an solenoid valve topped with a long steel pipe . The idea is that you let the pressurized liquid propane from the three filler tanks fill the empty accumulator with somewhere between 50 and 100 psi of gaseous propane.. Then you activate the solenoid and it release a blast of high0sh pressure propane over a small lit torch at the top. The torch is wrapped with coarse steel wool to keep it burning.  

Last weekend I built a small time delayed relay for the guys to use.. it uses a small micro controller to allow you to set the on time, off time.. and rep rate.. . The kids had made this massive wooden box to hold my tiny, tiny circuit.. most impressive. 

The other part of the piece the kids designed was an electric controlled spinner thing with two stainless steel baskets hanging off form it. those baskets held the balloons filled with hydrogen and a little burst of oxygen. the idea was to trigger the propane flame shooter as the  balloon swung over .. which would cause the balloon to explode loudly.. How cool is that ?

The kids were doing the final setup .. we took advantage of that to go inside to warm up and grab a snack..   On the left is homer’s buddy the Econ prof (can’t recall his name), Homer , Whit and Nicole..

We got back and a crowd had formed..  Home, Whit and the class kids turned on the gas and started shooting..   It was truly beautiful.. They were having pressure problems due t the cold.. but even so.. they were getting a good 10- 15 foot flame plume. You could feel the heat from the blast from 20 yards away.. Very, very  nice against the dark moonless sky.

I promised folks on Facebook movies of the thing firing.. so here ya go.. Note it was hard to time this to catch the baboons going off.. but I think you can get the idea..

OK.. this is going to be a busy week.. Better get to sleep.
Night everyone..
Nite Sam.. hoped you liked the fires..
-me