Maker Faire is Coming

Last night my friend Matt and I attended the town hall meeting for the Bay Area Maker Faire at TechShop San Francisco.  Even though the Maker Faire itself won't be until May 21st and 22nd, the place was packed:


Still, it was a great chance to meet some of the folks involved in organizing this great event.  I'll be putting together an exhibit showcasing some of my costuming projects and techniques, as well as having some of my friends stroll the location in suits of armor and whatnot.  I'll be one of 700 or so makers with every kind of project you can think of in attendance, so if you'll be anywhere near San Mateo, California that weekend to stop by and check us out. 

If you're interested, I wrote up a brief blog entry after I went as a visitor last year.  CLICK HERE TO READ ABOUT IT.




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Unseaworthy Vessel of the Week: Snowmobiles

This picture is not photoshopped:

The water is many feet deep, and the snowmobile pictured is not being towed and has not been modified in any significant way.

What you're looking at is "Snowmobile Skipping," also known as "Watercross."  This is a sport where riders drive snowmobiles on water, counting on their wide tracks to give them enough speed to drive them across the water before they can sink.

Invented during the drug-fueled haze of the 1970s, the First Annual World Championship Snowmobile Watercross was held in July 1977 in Grantsburg, Wisconsin (where there's clearly not much else going on) and sounds more like a drunken dare between some snowmobilers wondering if they could hit the water of Memory Lake fast enough to make it the 300 feet to the island in the middle.

Since that fateful day, the event has grown by leaps and bounds.  Now, some 33 years later, tens of riders compete in the various classes ranging from the beginners' Stock Drags to the top Pro-Open Ovals Class. 

I'd love to try cutting an oval on the water in a snowmobile.  Then figure eights.

Riders are required to wear helmets and lifejackets and the snowmobiles are fitted with tethered buoys so they can be located in the likely event of a sinking.  Otherwise, they tend to strip as much gear as they can from their vehicles in order to save weight.  This usually includes removing the seat:


If you've got a snowmobile lying around that you don't like, it turns out there's a formula to the madness.  For the typical snowmobile you need to hit the water with a speed of 5mph for every 150 pounds of vehicle-rider-silliness and keep the throttle wide open for as long as you intend to avoid swimming.

Don't blame me when you drown.


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Impractical Military Vehicle of the Week: the Convair XFY "Pogo"

The year was 1951 and those sneaky Russkies were going to attack any minute.  In order to keep ships safe at sea, the US Navy decided they needed to have fighter planes that could be close at hand whether there was an aircraft carrier nearby or not.  The solution: the Convair XFY "Pogo":



It doesn't look like much of anything unusual until you realize that that picture's sideways.  Here's one of them parked on the tarmac:



That's right.  It was a vertical take-off and landing fighter plane that landed on its tail so it could be stored under a little teepee on the deck of even the smallest warship.  It had delta wings and three-bladed contra-rotating propellers powered by a 5,500 hp Allison YT40-A-16 turboprop engine.


The idea was to have a high-performance fighter aircraft capable of operating from small warships. They could take off on short notice by cranking up the throttle and rising straight into the air.  Then the pilot would level out and head off to engage the enemy fighters. 


I suppose the plan was for this funny little plane to then get blown out of the sky because there was almost nobody in the world who could land the damned thing.  On the way down, the pilot had to look over his shoulder while carefully working the controls while approaching the pitching and rolling deck of a small warship at sea.


In the end the prototype was deemed to be plenty fast and maneuverable, but it had problems slowing down and stopping due to inadequate control surfaces and air brakes.  The Navy also decided it didn't have enough single-use fighter pilots.


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Random SF Bay Cruise aboard the SSS Compass Rose

The weather forecast called for snow.  So when the weekly Wednesday night meeting discussion turned to planning for the weekend, naturally the kids in the crew of the Sea Scout Ship Compass Rose wanted to take the boat out and bounce around the bay.


The plan: get underway on Friday evening and make it up as we go.  How did it go?  Story and pictures after the jump...

Quick! Somebody Get Me One of These!

A while back, the geniuses at ThinkGeek.com started selling Jedi bathrobes.  They were cool and all, but they didn't really move me enough to stop me from just wandering around dripping and nude after a shower.  But this week they've granted the same sort of love to Trekkies in the form of Kirk and Spock bathrobes:

What's really great about it is that I can just imagine Captain Kirk in a 23rd-Century version of the Playboy Mansion, sipping Romulan ale by the Grotto, surrounded by green centerfolds and wearing this bathrobe. 

It's just the right kind of swanky/geeky to make me retire my Hugh Hefner smoking jacket.

If you're feeling magnanimous and think I should have this thing, you can get it here: http://www.thinkgeek.com/brain/gimme.cgi?wid=81d8c1af7

I promise I'll post pictures...

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