[Jim - 05.08.2003] It consists of two 12' diameter black helium balloons that will lift an EL wire sculpture 100' into the night sky over the playa. The sculpture will be an 8' tall by 35' wide graphite "frame" structure with mesh interior. On it, we will create "Gods Eyes". Each eye will be approximately 10' feet long x 8' tall. Our goal is to have the eyes animate so that they not only "blink" but they will look left to right also.

[Jim 05.10.2003] Tim is going to meet with us at the Mad scientists workshop to discuss plans to build us a wireless remote controller for the Eyes. Also, they have decided that we will only need one 24 volt battery on the ground with 24 gauge wire back to the top. Then, up at the sequencers he will reduce that power back down with a lightweight chip set to 16 volts..... I have such a boner right now - and no where to put it

[Mike 05.11.2003] Jim and I discussed the possibility of setting up the van like a temple or Mexican/Aztec shrine. We don't want to steal or duplicate the man's platform idea, but simply to participate with them in the theme. We still need to create a platform for the eyes frame and it needs to be accessible for maintenance and repairs. It would also be nice to have the eyes on display on the van on windy nights when we can't fly.

[Jim 05.16.2003] John will be building our remote controls and sequencer for the EOG. Good Guy - extremely talented and he's got guts! No seriously - GUTS! I saw them at his house, he plugged them in and showed 'em to me.

[JohnW 05.19.2003] I met with Tim Black (The Wizard) down at our headquarters tonight and he went over the basics of the radio link for controlling the sequencer. It appears to be dirt simple. In fact, I can use most of the code from my digestive system piece to handle the communication between the radio link and the EL Wire sequencer...
...One limitation the radio link does introduce is the need to keep the maximum number of channels down to those that can fit on one sequencer board. If I have to use a second board to finish the sequencing, the communications gets a lot more tricky and introduces a lot more risk into completing the hardware on time.
...One thing I ask the design team to do is not push the sequencer too close to the 24 channel limit. The PIC microcontroller chip assigns multiple functions to many of its pins. Pins that seem to be available for sequencing disappear as soon as you do things like use a timer or communicate with another PIC (both things that I'll have to do). 20 channels is a safe maximum number and using that many shouldn't be a problem. However, if you go above 20, definitely talk to me before you start laying down wire.

[Jason 05.21.2003] One of my plans is to draw the eyes gawd on the mountains. I'm not sure if the laser will be powerful enough for that but it's worth a shot. That is as long as the software is easy enough for me to use and i can muster enough artistic ability to draw the eyes. The fun thing is I need to use an only amiga 500 and being a pack rat I still have my C64 drawing pad I'm hoping will work with this.

[JohnW 05.21.2003] I spent some time last night thinking about sequence control and looking at the code I have. For this project, it should be pretty easy to have a lot of control over the eyes. Here are some supplemental ideas to the ones Jim suggested below:

Holding the sequence:
If you want to look left or right, blink, or fire the strobes, it should be easy to make the eyes stay left, right, or closed as long as you hold the button down. The strobes would similarly stay on as long as you held the button (although I may put in a 10-second limit on this one depending on the amount of power they draw). Other buttons would be ignored while this type of sequence was in progress.

Speed control:
Rather than using the top and bottom buttons to trigger sequences, they could be used for speed control of the look-left/right and blink sequences. You could either use both buttons to increment or decrement the speed by small amounts, or you could use one button to toggle between a slow and fast setting for each sequence. If you use just one button, this simplifies things quite a bit.

Auto-blinking:
By default, the eyes will sit in idle mode not doing anything special. I will probably have a timer setup to make the eyes blink at a preset interval automatically. Blinking them manually or doing anything will reset the interval. I can also have them look left and right automatically after a preset amount of idle time.

With these design ideas, all 5 buttons of the remote would be used nicely. The left and right buttons would look in their respective directions for as long as you hold the button. The down button would blink. (I could make this one hold too if you want.) The up button would change the speed, and the center button would trigger the strobes for as long as you hold the button.

Startup:
I can create a default startup sequence if you want. I would go for something simple though like:
1) Apply power, eyes start off closed
2) Open eyes
3) Blink once
4) Look left and come back to center
5) Blink once
6) Look right and come back to center
7) Blink twice if the radio link is active; otherwise, blink once.
8) Go into idle mode.

Everything up until idle would have a preset speed and timing. Buttons would be ignored during this sequence. If the radio link is not communicating at all, the final blink sequence would let us know that. If there's no radio link communication, the default idle sequence will take care of blinking and looking around from time to time.

These are just some more ideas for people to consider. Other things for folks to consider are the interval times before triggering automatic events and how fast the blink and look-left, look-right sequences should be. We can play with these values later too.

[Jim 06.02.2003] - The el visibility was tremendous and far better than even I expected. The angel aqua wire (with the proper voltage for optimum performance) was easily visible from a half mile away. It will be seen from most if not all of BRC whenever it is in the sky. I would imagine large crowds of people gathered around it when it is in the sky...
- The Balloons will lift a total of 90 pounds, so we are shooting for a 30-40 pound project including tethers.
- There are a couple of SAFETY and technical concerns that we discovered.

1) the tether lines can be dangerous when the ballons start moving around. They can travel 50 feet in a second or two. Those 300 pound test lines will take your ear right off if your in the way. So:
a) I died the lines black today, but only the top 100 feet of line. The bottom 25 feet of line is still white. and we should tie a red flag at about the 5 foot height when the balloons are up in the air.
2) The two balloons together can lift a person off the ground in BIG leaps into the air. If someone wants to build the harness, we can spend the last day (SUNDAY) playing. If you want to build the "body harness" , let me know and I'll give you the specs...

3) It takes 20 minutes to inflate a balloon with three tanks of helium. While inflating the balloon it is absolutely CRITICAL that there be at least five people on scene. First and most important: The tank puts out over 2000 pounds of pressure if you open the valve a full turn and it WILL blow a hole right through the balloon. So, a qualified person should handle the valve on the tank and ensure that the gas is "trickled" in until the balloon is inflated to a point where it is safe o open the tank further.

4) sharp objects - while the polyurethane material is extremely durable and tear resistant, any sharp object like, sun glasses, hat decor, cigarettes, watches, rings, and miss-stepped shoes could certainly and easily damage the balloons. So, anyone handling the balloons should remove these items before participating.

5) Radio communication - we had a BALL using the FRS radios during the 4 car caravan up to the playa and realized that communication is not only fun but essential while handling the balloons. If anyone is planning to buy radios for themselves we understand that the Cobra brand is of the best quality and range. (john and bare - i have your radios)

6) We will only fly the project in Calm to 8 mph wind (max). Once the wind hits 10+ - it becomes unpredictable and dangerous for the balloons, people and property.

7) The balloons will spin and twist the tethers where they are attached to the "d-ring" , so we'll add "spinner connectors" that will allow them to turn with out tangling the lines.

8) The balloons can "pull" well over a hundred pounds of pressure in a 20 mile an hour gust. I cant imagine what a 50 mph gust would do... so we add "shock bungees" to alleviate the wind SPIKE pressures on the balloons and tethers. Also - All Tether handlers should wear gloves at all times while handling the tethers. A gust of wind can burn you or take your finger off if you have a line wrapped around it.

9) We need to put together a list of Balloon Support teams. 3 people per balloon (minimum). So, those people would be responsible for each balloon on that day. What this means besides operating the balloon and entertaining the masses is, YOU HAVE TO STAY SOBER! While we realize that everyone wants to party and we highly encourage tribe members to make FUN their #1 priority at BM, we have to accomplish what we have set out to do with the utmost in safety and responsibilty. So, lets put together a list of staffers starting from Monday thru Sunday. You can volunteer for as many shifts as you like, taking into consideration that you will stay sober, alert reliable and dedicated to the EOG performance project for that period of time.
ALL tribe members are welcome - So, if Ruvi would add another "EOG Support Staffers" table to the Tribe site with "advance team" and then, Monday thru Sunday shed-yule, we can start putting folks down for specific days. I personally will be available and on scene for the duration. (the buck stops here as they say).

More as I decompress from a weekend that felt like a wonderful week at BM - (film at 11)

[Jim 06.11.2003] - This all makes perfect sense to me John (yeah, right), but i do have some more info for you Mad Scientist Types. We layed out the scale template last night and did precise measurements of the amount of wire that we'll need.

The first "fully open channel" uses 196 feet 4 inches of wire. Add 10% for "blacked out wire and fudge factor and we'll use 225 feet.

As far as the sequences goes, we're going to "keep it simple" and get it done. After much thought I realized that it doesn't "improve" the project by adding any more channels than we really need. So here it is;

Blink: (from full on channel 1) - 2 -3 -4 -5 -6 (bottom of eyelid) -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 (fully open)

Look Left: (From dead center/ channel one) -7 -8 -9 -10 (fully left) -9 -8 -7 -1 (dead center/channel 1)

Look Right: (from dead center / channel 1) - 11 -12 -13 -14 (fully right) -13 -12 -11 -1 (dead center/channel 1)

does this make sense? To give you an idea. The blink "steps" travel aprox 6" (in the middle) with each sequence step. The LOOK lft/rt travels less than 3" with each sequence step. Due to the large size of the pupils in comparison to the "white area" around the pupils, there isn't that much "travel" needed in order for the pupils to move completely to the edge of the eye. i contemplaed how the eye might move "beyond" that edge, but I'm thinking it would give it an un-natural look.

Today i am going to try and estimate the TOTAL amount of wire including the wire need for the animation. It might take me awhile but i think i can get close...I'll get back with you in a few hours.

We will be displaying "stage one" (200 feet of wire) at the flambe lounge. Is there anything we should do as far as wiring, conectors and driver to make it readapt to the final animated configuration?

FACTOIDS:

- The 12' Balloons Cost $750 each (so, we do not have a back-up balloon)

- The project will fly 125' in the nite sky.

- This will be Burning Mans "Tallest" fixed artwork in the history of the event. (stationary at 125' off the ground.

- The EL wire alone for ths project will cost approx $650.00 not including hardware, computer or mad scientists.

- If you put Mine and my son Chris's dicks end to end, Brads is still bigger.

- OK - here is the unofficial number. The reason it's unofficial is cuz i can only estimate and then fudge up... But its pretty close.

- The project will use a total length of wire at 650 feet. Of course all 650' will not be on at any given time. i think the maximum load is stage one at 200 feet and it will go down from there given the pupils get smaller whether its a blink or rotate rt/lft

JohnW [07.21.03] - The primary assembly of the sequencer and power system hardware for the Eyes of Gawd is NOW FINISHED!!!! WOO HOO!!!

Many thanks go out to the Wizard for helping me with the power systems and radio link. Many thanks also to my sweetie Joan for supporting me in my frenzied race to finish the hardware.

WHAT WE'VE GOT:
----------------------------
I've attached a picture so folks can see exactly what we've got. Here's the basic rundown.

1) We feed 12 Volts from a car battery into an AC inverter, which kicks the juice up to 120 Volts AC.

2) We take that 120 Volts AC and feed it into a custom power stepper that converts the voltage to approximately 323 Volts DC. This connects to a very small wire that runs up the balloon tether and plugs into the power distribution box up on the frame. (We use high voltage so we can feed a lot of power up a very thin line.)

3) The power distribution box takes the 323 Volts from the ground and converts it into 13.3 Volts with up to about 10 Amps of power for all our EL sequencing, video, strobe light, and radio link needs.

4) The sequencer controls both the EL wire and the strobe lights, which it can pulse at mind-mangling frequencies. The sequencer takes commands from the radio link, which is controlled from the ground by a small key-fob device kinda like your car remote.

5) The big box at the top of the picture houses all of the inverters (6+ of the phat boys) and provides EL-wire friendly power to both the fixed and sequenced EL wire.

6) The strobe lights themselves mount in the center of the eyes.

STUFF TO DO:
----------------------------
Of course, although the hardware is assembled, I still need to do a lot of testing to make sure it's all running properly. I've already tested the power systems and have got the power distribution system working very cleanly. We'll still need to add about 150 feet of thin wire to the system to test the voltage drop across that much wire, but that's easy to do and shouldn't cause any noticeable problems.

The biggest piece still to test is the communication between the radio link and the sequencer board. I have all the code for both pieces written, but there are occasional timing issues when trying to get two boards to talk like this. Luckily, it's nothing that can't be solved in software and so shouldn't be too difficult. In any case, I'm planning to get this tested as much as possible this week.

The final phase of testing requires coming up to Colfax to do the full-on integration with the EL wire and frame. I have two plugs that need to be soldered to the EL wire leads coming off of the frame. Those plugs then bolt onto the sequencer box. The strobes also need to be attached to the frame and have wires run back to the sequencer box. Finally, the whole airborne part of the system (the inverter box, power distribution box, and sequencer box) needs to be secured to the frame. All of the boxes need to be sealed to prevent the intrusion of playa on the friendly circuits. Once all that's complete, we can do the final tests to make sure everything works, the sequences look good, and everything is to our liking.

I've talked to Jim and we're planning on doing the sequencer/EL Wire integration on the weekend of August 2-3. There won't be a whole lot of labor to do during that time. It'll probably be me and Jim tweaking and testing during the evenings.

Mike [08.13.03] Tomorrow (wed 30th July) I will be taking the art car to Flash's
ranch in Placerville to assemble and continue the work. Welding with
Flash and Tom, and art with Dana Albany. My plan is to have all the
outer skin (plywood) cut, numbered and ready for decorating by friday
afternoon. There is still a lot of welding and bracing to do. The
actual dimensions are 24ft long, 12ft wide and 12ft tall. The cubbies
will hold 8 people total (4 cubbies with 2 people each) and the roof
platform will hold 4 people. We can fit an aditional 6 people inside,
but no windows except for the drivers windshield. There are still a
lot of bugs to work out and a LOT of work to do, these numbers and
dimensions are subject to change!