I will be showing this at Dorkbot next week!
Thanks to Omega Recoil crew, Alan and Tackett for help in restoring this amazing piece of history!
This Related post has more pictures of where I found it and links to paperwork for it.
How to bake an electric cupcake, Tesla Roster, and the Marriage Wrecker.
Greg Solberg’s Bio: Greg has an undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley and thirty years of programming experience. Fifteen years ago he got involved with electric vehicles. Encouraged by a complete lack of knowledge on the subject he took on the task of converting his Honda Del Sol to electric propulsion. Four years later the Del Sol was running. Since then he has created a number of amusing electric art car vehicles (Electric Couch, Pink Bunny Slippers, and Cupcake Cars). Currently he has landed his dream job at Tesla Motors where he spends much of his time extracting the last little bits of performance out of the Tesla’s AC induction motor drive.
Keith Johnson’s Bio: At Stanford University, Keith wrestles with thorny issues around preserving very-long-term access to digital information-from esoteric research data to the digital photographs we’re all making now. For fun, he tinkers with anything mechanical or electronic, especially cars. Five years ago, encouraged and assisted by Greg Solberg, Lisa Pongrace, and his wife Merrilee Proffitt, he built two electric cupcake cars. Last year, inspired to create something a bit bigger, he built a full-size, air-suspended, electric-powered, robotic horse- drawn carriage (without the horse) decorated briefly as an industrial- age Cinderella’s Pumpkin Carriage. Though the carriage fared well on the rough Playa, the pumpkin shell disintegrated, and the carriage found its name, the “Marriage Wrecker.”
Interrogation by Robot
Recently he created robots that hug, laugh,
interrogate, party, make up stories, remove free will and buy beer. Currently he is working on Artificial Personality projects. He will be talking about interrogation by robot, there will be a short video.
Bio: Michael Winter is co-founder of Stupid Fun Club, a Berkeley based think tank. Before that, he founded three successful technology companies. More importantly, he won the first Robot Wars with his flipper robot, X1.
Wireless Power Transmission: How did Nikola Tesla do it? By Omega Recoil
In the late 1800s Nikola Tesla began experimenting with transmitting power wirelessly via the earth’s crust and the ionosphere. He invented what we now know as the Tesla Coil; this device was capable of generating extremely high voltages, and was the pre-curser to radio transmission. What was Tesla doing? How was he doing it? Does wireless power work? The Omega Recoil team have been re-creating some of Tesla’s wireless power experiments, with interesting results.
Our presentation will include videos of our Tesla Coils running and power being transmitted wirelessly.
Bio: Omega Recoil is a team of Scientists, builders, engineers, showmen and industrial artists that have created extremely large sparks in the San Francisco Bay area since 1999. The members of the group began work with: Pyrokenetics, Dr. Megavolt, Flaming Lotus Girls, SRL, Firefall, SimNuke, and Acme Muffineering. Omega Recoil is the intersection where Mad Science meets Art and Education.
Tacket built a wonderful new Bar to put the Volt Aged on. Come see us age whiskey 30 years in only seconds! Revel in our ability to change junks shape, and drink enough to believe our tales of science.
Escape from Berkeley, Kick-off party and Vehicle Showcase, at the Shipyard Labs 1010 Murray Street in Berkeley, CA. Entry is a sliding scale five to fifteen, with all proceeds going to the race.
The night before the Escape from Berkeley rally commences come gawk and meet the Racers. Lay down your bets, who will win and who will be voted sexiest vehicle. Enjoy, Fired Scottish whiskey by Jon Sarriugarte, Orations and evocations by non-other than Dr. Hal and John Hell, and a surprise libation from Flash.
My friends who have spent way too much time in Berkeley have decided finally to get out, but not soon enough to be affected by the hippie vestages of left wing counter culture.
The City Berkeley is now a maximum security statist dystopia . . .
Cars are illegal . . .
Petroleum is a controlled substance . . .
Now, geeks and gearheads unite to . . .
“Escape from Berkeley” is a road rally of alternatively powered vehicles from Berkeley, California to Las Vegas, Nevada. Part engineering problem, part artistic opportunity, the rally challenges contestants to start their “engines” on something other than petroleum based fuel, and by any means necessary, cause their “vehicles” show up in Las Vegas three days later- using only fuels/power/motive force scavenged “for free” along the route.
DARPA had a Grand Challenge. . . the rednecks a Cannonball Run. . . and the hippies a bunch of WVO buses broken down on the side of the road. Now, NASA scientists and junkyard fabricators go head-to-head in a no holds barred battle of engineering prowess and creative excess. Hanging somewhat in the balance, are bragging rights for saving the world. That, and a grand prize of $5,000.
Starting the night my drinking buddies and I took over my wife’s Craft night to solve the problem of aging brandy before the “End of Ages” comes in 2012, we came across this single sentence in an old book from the 1930’s. “The treatment with pure oxygen gas with or without an electric burrent”. We discussed at long length what a burrent was and where we could get one, then decided it was a typo and they ment current. Fortunately I just happened to have a luminous transformer in my basement, fortunately for my house we were fresh out of oxygen (can you think of a more flammable cocktail)? A couple of clothespins, wire and a glass full of bitter brandy and we were ready. Not much could be seen as we pumped 15,000 volts into the brandy, but much to our surprise, once removed, the taste had smoothed considerably. We had drank to much at that point to finish the job, but settled on the name VOLT/AGED for our new process.
Several nights later we set up production at my shop in West Oakland and added a copper pipe system that featured a Jacobs ladder that could be short circuited in the drink to be “treated”. This gave the us the visual that was missing from the 1st night and more surface area in which the reaction could now take place. We now had a 15,000 volt cattle prod with plenty of places to grab that was going to be right in the middle of a bar!
The next day (slight hangover) we added the safety cage complete with vintage rivets, Oil Punk plexiglass, and a timer to keep track of how many years we wanted to age it.
It was a hugh hit at the Mouse Trap Party and made Jack Danell’s a sipping drink!
Come see this and more at Maker Faire
May 3-4
