Mans! The Forums Is the Dead!

[zourtney]

This reminds me of a wild, fantastical concept I found on Wikipedia the other day: Vactrains. I'm particularly fascinated by in part about shooting into space at 20,000+ mph!

This came about from a direct query for maglev after seeing a demonstration and reading about the Meissner effect.

...now that I explain my train of thought, this seems almost entirely unrelated. But seriously, 20,000 mph burrowing, projectile trains sounds pretty freaking awesome.

[Cody]

Completely unrelated, yes. Freaking awesome, yes as well!

[Nick]

Haha! I had that idea years ago! Just ask Brad, I am sure I rambled about it more then once. Though I am sure someone thought it up in the 60s but had no way of building it.

Airless tubes with a floating train is the way to go!

Edit: Nope, some guy in 1910 thought it up before me
"was explored in the 1910s by American engineer Robert Goddard"

[Cody]

Completely unrelated to trains... In light of the roof over the wood pile project, I got one of these as an early birthday present. One of those things you always want but never buy because you aren't exactly sure how useful it will be.

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10051&productId=202311431&langId=-1&catalogId=10053&ci_sku=202311431&ci_src=14110944&cm_mmc=shopping-_-googlebase-_-D25X-_-202311431&locStoreNum=4018

[Brad]

I am incredibly lame this Halloween. I am making a new Halloween resolution that I will finish at least two cool projects by this time next year! No more lameness!

[Nick]

No more lameness! Sounds like a good resolution. One that many people could benefit from. Myself included.

[Cody]

The forums...it really is the dead!

[zourtney]

Dead, yes. But you're on the internet now! Torch!

[Cody]

Awesome! I have been doing some more experimenting with the torch making and have interesting results.

It would seem that, despite what would seem logical, kerosene burns nice and bright but for a very short period of time making it a poor torch. Motor oil on the other hand, when soaked into a cotton shirt and wrapped on a metal pole will burn for probably 15 to 30 minutes! Not to mention it is a nightmare to put out. I was swinging that thing around like a lightsaber and all it did was make super awesome whooshing noises.

But there is a problem...a very tightly wrapped piece of cloth may seem logical, but all it does is burn the outside couple layers and leave a large portion of the inner material completely undamaged. My solution to this was to roll/fold the cloth into a sort of rope and wrap it around. For that matter, a cotton or similar non melty type rope may be a fantastic torch end material.

Ideas?

[zourtney]

Interesting findings. That kerosene burns quickly is surprising...but then again, it's usually wicked up something and then burnt. Same with lamp oil.

We could try to devise something similar, but that quickly becomes more lantern like and less torch like.

Too bad about tightly wound cloth not burning well. Predictable, but a bummer. I wonder suspect creating some sort of air channel down the center would help (drilled holes, simple spacer, etc). But that's getting overly complex again...I think we just need tar.

And we should video some more Let's create a new thread on this, under Rec.

Edit: new topic, Simple Torches. Let's plot!

[Brad]

In a flash of something like inspiration, I have decided that building a cool killer robot suit with a working gun arm that shoots nerf pellets then creating a movie where this robot goes on a killing rampage. The robot is finally defeated when one of the heroes distracts it by yelling logical paradoxes at it such as "Do not obey this command!", "This statement is false", "Is the set of all sets a subset of itself?" This temporarily paralyzes the robot allowing another prson to sneak up and switch the robot off using the handy access panel located on the robots chest or back of course. All of this would be really cheesey and stupid of course as I have no filmaking, directing or acting talent. It would be really fun to make though.

The robot suit would need to be cool looking though not like a box wrapped in tin foil and shoved on somebodies head. I am thinking of borrowing some of the desing of the old optimus prime as I have seen somebody construct a good looking version of that.

Some robot coolness features:
Working nerf blasting arm (must be manually reloaded though)
Light up eyes (real human eyeholes located elsewhere)
Opening control panel with dials switches and lights.
Light up indicators on chest
Robot voice changer in helmet/head

This needs to be able to move well unlike the lego bodies. With what I learned from that experiance, as well as the boba fett helmet and other project I think I could pull this off.

It would make a sweet halloween costume too, if I start now maybe it'll ready halloween 2014.

[Nick]

Haha! I like the idea! And I would be happy to offer any help that you will take. I have a big sheet of semi-rigid plastic and loads of rather bright LEDs in various colors. I can even offer my services to program one of the IC chips I have to make them flash in whatever pattern you like! (or get some 555 timers from the R-Shack)

Lets make the project its own thread!

[Brad]

Alright, I will go ahead and make a thread for this. And I would be happy for any help I can get.

I think for this project to be successful it is going to have to be completely designed before it is built. All the joints figured out, all the required materials identified and working parts figured out.

Still thinking about materials, need it to be strong but not too heavy but also pretty darn cheap. May need to use a variety of materials for the different pieces depending on how sturdy/light the piece needs to be.

[Cody]

Not that anyone would ever want to put this much effort into such an absurd task, but I always have my vacuum forming table!

[Brad]

I think you are wrong about that... look at the people who do things like build a complete copy of ferrari out of carrdboard in their garage.

There are plenty of people who will put insane effort into absurd tasks. The question is.. are any of us one of those people?