Gasifier Experimenters Kit

Untitled Documentother words, drag it, REALLY really slow, using a track catepillar tractor built into the front of themechabolic animal to pull it.This would be rather interesting we think. No one has yet built anything between a stationaryinstallation and an art car on the playa to date. No really slow moving objects that are neitherstationary installation nor large rolling people conveyance, but rather a barely moving object withno visible wheels or discernable movement.It would be a tolerable amount of work to make a snake scale belly sort of thing out of tiled sheetsteel. 4' x 8' sheets, all nearly identical, each with a hole in the front and an attach pin at the back.Then lay them out tiled and and overlapped, from front to back. The lip overlap at the front of eachone, as well as the tremendously large surface area would give plenty of flotation. (see here) Or dothe belly as three larger plates, cooresponding to the three "cavities" of the creature, and form themwith radii at the joints so the creature can turn. (see here)Either form would not dig into the playa, given the huge flotation surface. The pressure on theplaya would actually be much less than wheeled vehicles. And as the floor is solid and the beast ismoving in inches per minute, not miles per hour, there would be almost zero dust. Also, steppingon and off the mechabolic would have no vertical elevation change, which would be interesting.The digestive/respirative "walk through" would be on the belly on the ground essentially.Maybe we could come up with a path for it to follow over the week. Make about one playacrossing each day, so it is "installed" somewhere different each night. Maybe do a winding pathfrom keyhole to trash fence, leaving a "slime trail" behind it, in the shape of a gigantic "smallintestine". Well actually, that wouldn't work, as the trail would disappear in minutes from foottraffic. But still, it would kinda work.I can slide a 20,000lb container building with my big forklift, riding only on sharp corners. So atracked Catepillar D-6 or so would surely pull 30,000 lbs of perfectly flat steel and sculpturalcuriosities across the playa. But quantative modeling, as well as on site testing early in the project,would surely be needed before committing to this scenario and planning/building accordingly.So in summary, it would be great if we could make it move, as animals move to scavenge for theirfood. But such is not a prerequisite for the project to be successful. The project can work well ineither a stationary or mobile form. We can discuss and develop each scenario in more detail as weprogress here.http://whatiamupto.com/mechabolic/physpecifics.html (4 of 6) [10/9/2008 08:18:04]