2007 Space Elevator Games – (Entry 36)

Here are couple of videos of E-T-C’s attempts to qualify this morning.  They went first, followed by UBC-Snowstar, Technology Tycoons, KC Space Pirates (for a practice run as they are already qualified) and then went again.  The first video is one of the climbs in their first set of attempts while the second video is one of the climbs in their second set of attempts.

They used a combination of smaller spotlights placed directly underneath the climber and two larger spotlights placed off to the side and angled toward the underside of the climber.  I have to remark about the smaller spotlights.  They wanted to be able to simulate a simultaneous “On” switch for these 8 spotlights.  What they did is cover them with some aluminum covers (looking remarkably like pie plates, though I don’t know what they are).  They had strings attached to them and, on signal, four people would each pull the strings to take their “pie plates” off the spotlights, letting them beam up to the climber.  Pretty cool 🙂

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9FpkuLXyTU[/youtube]

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24ynCBnlL28[/youtube]

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It’s truly a shame they didn’t qualify.  I went looking for some of their team members a little while ago to ask what happened, but I think they’ve gone home.  I’ll catch up with them tomorrow or Saturday.