Modern Archimedes (aka KC Space Pirates) to perform demonstration

From Brian Turner and the Kansas City Space Pirates, one of the entrants into both last year’s and this year’s Space Elevator Games;

The KC Space Pirates will be doing an “All up” demo this Friday and Saturday with the action happening from Noon to 3:30 each day. We will have a 50 ft crane rented for both days. This is for the benefit of a photographer from the New York Times Magazine, but I want to invite all of our fans and supporters out to take a look.

We will need volunteers to aim the mirrors and I need to get a count of how many will be there, So if you could please RSVP and state if you will be coming and if you want to aim a mirror that would be helpful. But feel free to stop by anyway.

We are planning a special treat at 3:00 PM on Sat. We will try the heliobeaming mirrors out as an Archimedes Death Ray. Surprisingly we have never had the chance to do this before. So it could be a historical event, or a bust. At over 500 square feet, our mirrors are bigger than the ones used on the TV show Mythbusters. We will try to set the focal distance to the “Standard” of 150 ft.

Location:
10016 NW Skyview Ave
KCMO 64154

When:
6/8 and 6/9 12:00 to 3:30 PM

Directions:
I-29 toward the airport
Exit Tiffany springs Take a right Toward Embassy Suites(East) Follow Tiffany springs parkway through 3 traffic circles heading east. (1st right then 2nd right then 3rd right.)  The former polo Club is on the NW corner of Tiffany Springs and Skyview. The driveway is right on the north edge of the 3rd traffic circle. Pull past the house and big barn to the parking lot on the right.  Park on the black part of that lot.  We have rented a crane but not a port-o-potty so take care.

Hope to see you all there.

Captain Brian Turner
brian [AT] kcspacepirates.com
Kansas City Space Pirates

This sounds very cool and is the first communication of many I hope to receive from the various teams detailing demos they’ll be doing of their equipment.

What they need to do is to focus this beam onto a lake or pond and have a model sailboat travel through the focal point.  Or, to update it to more modern times, get a model airplane and fly it through the focal point.  Seeing either do so and then spontaneously burst into flames would generate some great footage!

One note; Brian tells me the location may change.  So, be sure to check their website for the latest information if you plan to attend the demo.  Brian, you will be shooting some video and posting it on your site or on YouTube, yes?

2 thoughts on “Modern Archimedes (aka KC Space Pirates) to perform demonstration

  1. Edin

    I dont want to comment this blog,just to wish every luck to the every team ,who is in this competition about space elevator.

  2. Dan Leafblad

    Oh yeah, sorry. we shot a few hours of good video but haven’t done anything with it yet but we might use some of it to put a video together for our table at the competition.

    we had a lot of fun with it, the photographer was using a large format camera (the types that look like accordions) so he had a large black cape so he could see the camera. and he held it up to see if our mirrors might hurt it or the camera and we got his cape smoking, on video too i might add… we burned his leg too, i guess he shouldn’t have worn black pants!

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