Here is a last minute update on the ship.

As I mention in the video we had some huge additional cost and a few of us put some large purchases on our credit cards. If you like this project, if it is something you would like to support we can really use your donations.

Donations

You can also support the ship by buying a Tripod

Tripods

Thank you so much,

Captain Andy

I once read that street performance was the most honest way to make a living. I’m not talking about Panhandling but actual performance. Such as the musician, the juggler, a spray paint artist etc…they all put on a show. You get to watch that show and if you think you were entertained, if you enjoyed yourself, then you are free to decide how much it was worth. You set the price and you are free to not pay anything and watch as long as you like.

I like Kickstarter because it does the same thing on a larger scale. You can see what someone wants to accomplish, if you think it is worth wild then you can give, you can support it, you can set your price.

The Kickstarter project has to be well thought out. You need a budget, a time line and the means to accomplish your goal and it is an all or nothing goal. Our project isn’t any different, we need to have enough people that believe in us to get funded.

We are almost to the half way point of our Kickstarter goal and it means a lot to the crew and myself that this many people believe in us. That this many people are willing to give their hard earned money to strangers so that a dream can be finished. Thank you.

Why I Love the Pirate Ship:

When I set out to build an Art car I wanted to create a challenging engineering project that my friends could work on. One that required everyone to push their abilities and learn more of what they are capable of accomplishing. I started by myself in 2008 (design work goes back to 2004) and I was hoping to develop interest from friends as work progressed. It became much bigger than I ever thought. I wasn’t prepared to have the ship become a focal point that grew a community. Over 100 people have worked on the ship. People have learned to weld, to run lathes, milling machines, and all kinds of power tools. It was often joked after we worked a 10-15 hour day that “we missed ‘Law and Order’ again”, it was funny to us because we could see what we had actually accomplished.

Some people say “I can’t believe how much time you gave up to build that”. We didn’t give up anything; this is the stuff that makes life worth living. Being able to work with my old friends, to make new friends, to make this happen, to solve problems together, to learn together… it is a pleasure that everyone should experience.

The Ship’s construction has been well documented; you can see where we have been and where we are going.

The Latest: http://www.LostMachine.com/blog/

The First: http://www.LostMachine.com/blog/page/4

I’ve seen the ship change lives, read the comment by Kelli Pope on the KickStarter page to get one persons view. Her view is not unique. Because of the ship other art projects have been created, life long friendships have been formed, along with a general renewed hunger to Make something. This is how we Build Community.

Thank you. I can’t type those words in a way to convey to you how we feel, how grateful we are that you believe in us and what we are doing. We won’t let you down.

Again, Thank you for supporting us.

Captain Andy

The Pirate Ship is a project that makes no money, we do it because it is fun.
We do it because we like to see what is possible. We like to help people learn what they can do, learn to work with tools.
We like to think the ship brings smiles, a sense of wonder, and allows people to dream bigger.

Because of that we think it is worth doing. If you think it is worth doing, and think this it is fun too, can you kick us a few bucks? We don’t need a lot, we just need a little form a lot of people.

Even if you can’t afford it, helping spread the word means a lot to us.

Thank you,
Captain Andy

What an Awesome trip it was. The booth was a huge success, we removed the pinion gear from the ship’s steering wheel so that it spun freely. A lot of kids got to play with the wheel and we were able to pass our a lot of flyers. We raised enough money to file for our 501(c)3 status with the IRS, with some left over to help buy the new engine.

More Photos

Our booth looked good, we were set up in the dark room with the Tesla Coils.

Adam Savage from the Mythbusters and Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs gave a speeches just in front of our booth which was really cool but probably hurt our sales a little. The Tesla coils were really loud but a lot of fun to watch. This is Adam Savage dancing in the faraday cage.

We also got listed on the Maker Faire site

This was a good outing for the 6 of us that went, we worked well together even after working two long days talking to thousands of people. Some of my favorite parts were when I would explain how the steering worked and see everyone gather around to listen.

Our Small booth was a lot of fun but the crew and I really want to take the ship down to the Faire next year. Before we can do that we need to get that new engine and get the Fire Effects finished.

If you were one of the people we talked to this weekend, Thank you, you made all of us really happy.

We are off to Maker Faire in two days. We’ll have a small booth where we hope to make enough money to buy the rest of the materials to add the Fire effects to the ship along with a working engine.

If you are there please come find us, we are listed under
Tripod Sentinels

We have a 10ft x10ft Space to work with, I did a SketchUp Model and on Friday Sparks and I began building the Frame.

This was a fun Video, I love the noise of the Hole Saw from inside the tube, along with the shop stereo at the end of the cut.

We didn’t need perfect fit ups for this frame but they are fun to do so why not?

The rest of the crew has been busy packing, getting the merchandise ready to be sold. Sarah has made some awesome magnets, Claire has made 3D Calendars of the ships construction and Jules made a locking device on the ship’s steering wheel so that no little fingers get crushed in the gears.

If you are in the Bay Area We hope to see you at Maker Faire

I did a walk around video today, the first one I have done since last year.

Those wheels are our first priority, mainly because they aren’t that expensive but do require some skilled welding that will take time to accomplish. We need to sell 4 Tripods before we can order material to make the wheels I am hoping we can do that this week. I have just added 28 new Tripods to the web page.

http://www.LostMachine.com/store/index.html

Of course if you would like to make a smaller donation we would really appreciate it:

PayPal Donation

After the wheels we will be focusing on raising money for a new engine and control system. This is our most expensive purchase but also one of the least labor intensive.

Once those are done we can put large fire effects on the ship, the goal is to have a Sail of Fire. That will take both a lot of money and a lot of work, but can you put a price on lighting up the desert with huge poofs of fire? It turns out that you can and it is about $2000…but what is the cost of a hundred smiles and what is the cost of a hundred smiles a few thousand times? Yes, we love what we do, we believe in it too, and we hope that you’ll believe in us too.

Click for larger image

Claire, our Boatswain has documented the build with over a thousand 3D photographs, she has selected the best and has put them together for the evening of Friday, February 25th, 2011 from 6pm until 9pm. The slide show will run 10-15 minutes and will be repeated multiple times during the night. There will be action shots of the tools being used, see the ship as it is built from the ground up, see photos from the Ship’s first trip to Burning Man, all in 3D.

We will have clothing, patches and we should have the first Tripods of 2011 available for purchase.

The sales from the merchandise table will go towards the refit of the C.S. Tere. We have some big plans for this year, including: a new bio-diesel engine, and a “Sail of Fire”. If last year taught us anything it is that we make the impossible happen (and we plan to do that again).

We will have clothing, patches and if the last needed parts get here we should have the first Tripods of 2011 available.

Here is the Facebook invite:

3D Show on Facebook

Here is the location

View Larger Map

Fire effects and new lighting on the Yards

The Yards lowered will make the ship 16ft wide, to sail back to camp withing Black Rock City we will use a large crank operated screw to raise the yards

You can watch the video on their site.
http://watch.discoverychannel.ca/clip372772#clip372772

The new Tripods are currently being made, this week we will start on the lenses, then the back covers, we will save the soldering of the boards for last. We hope to have them ready by early December.

With my Burning Man Projects I have two goals that I like to accomplish:

1: To create a challenging engineering project that my friends could work on. One that required everyone to push their abilities and learn more of what they are capable of accomplishing.

2: To raise the level of Art and give something beautiful to the Burning Man community.

It is also my hope people working on my projects will learn things that they will use in their own work, and that they will pass that on to others.

I would like to take a moment to acknowledge Jesse Banks, the creator of the original Tripod circuit board. He put in hundreds of hours on the ship and helped solve some difficult engineering challenges. He has since decided to move forward and pursue other goals; we wish him the best of luck and will miss the enthusiasm he brought to the project.

]]> http://www.LostMachine.com/blog/archives/279/feed 0 http://www.LostMachine.com/blog/archives/264 http://www.LostMachine.com/blog/archives/264#comments Thu, 04 Nov 2010 09:54:36 +0000 LostMachine http://www.LostMachine.com/blog/?p=264

See the Update to this post here: http://www.lostmachine.com/blog/archives/279

I have good news and bad news. The good news is new Tripods are being built, 238 new Tripods are in the shop right now in various stages of completion.

The bad news is we no longer have a source for their electronic Hearts. The circuit design was co-developed between an electrical engineer and myself. The work was done on a volunteer basis to support the ship. Unfortunately he in no longer interested in volunteering his software.

What we need is an Electrical Engineer to help design a new Heart for the Tripods.

This time I want the design to be open source so that anyone can build their own Tripod or incorporate the PCB into their own artwork.

What we Need:
The physical design requirement for the PCB:
1-1/8″ x 2-1/8″.
Along the upper edge we need room for 8 thru hole RGB LEDs
An easily accessible programming header
A microphone to input sound
Powered by (3) AAA batteries (4.5v)
Controlled by a momentary Switch SPST
A single centered screw hole that can be tapped to mount the board to the back cover.
Use of the Atmel Tiny88 would be a bonus since we have a lot left over from the ship’s construction.
A small PCB with solder pads for the switch (1-1/8″ x 3/8″)

Initial Software requirements:
Two software modes, the first would be color morphing of the 8 LEDs on two color channels, (e.g. four LEDs could be blue and the other four yellow)
The second mode would be sound reactive (turning on and off to the beat of the music and changing colors).

I have included a picture of the original board but have blurred out the surface mount components to avoid copyright claims.

Being open source I hope others will later develop their own alternative color pallets, reaction modes etc. For now all we need is the basic features. The design would also need to include a parts list preferably with Digi-Key or Mouser part numbers.

Full disclosure: We intend to use the design to build Tripods and sell them to support the C.S. Tere Pirate Ship art car. We would like to take the ship to Maker Fair this spring. The sales of the Tripods would help with the transportation cost, tooling and materials on the ship.

I wish we had a huge cash prize to offer but we are operating close to the red. What I can offer is either (5) built out Tripods (your possible x-mas shopping?) or two larger custom Tripods like the one made for the Threshold Fundraiser. While the Tripods are nice gifts I am looking for the person that does this because they love the project, not because they believe it will make them rich.

I have been documenting the steel and plastic fabrication so that others can use the same construction techniques to make their own. I am excited that the PCB design and software will be open source.

(I have a history of making my techniques public; the new video will cover welding the legs, lots of Jigs and fixtures and an update on the acrylic glass technique below)

If you or someone you know is capable of helping we would greatly appreciate it. Please forward this to any list or web site that could help; we need the word to get out on this one.

I’m not sure how this will work out, but I believe something good will come out of this. Please email me for further questions.
LostMachine <@> Gmail.com

Thank you for your help,

Captain Andy

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