We’ve been working with boys and others on this project for a while and all ideas and discussions ended up mostly in my head only. Like a week ago I’ve started thinking about wrapping it all in some sort of system where I can off-load most of things, log our progress and potentially share it with the others. I’ve realised that my very good friend Tam had a blog for their family’s trip around Australia and that was a for which worked out pretty well, so let’s give it a try here.
As a beginning there are few goals I am thinking to reach and I’ll try to keep their list updated. I’m going to drop some here, till I’ll find some better way to track them properly:
Phase I: Hydrogen Balloon (Little guy)
This phase is just to evaluate that we have all material needed with minimal budget, what are our biggest challenges and if there is a way forward.
- Glue together a 1m3 balloon from Mylar [COMPLETED]
- Check if it can be pressurised with the air [COMPLETED]
- Check how long it stay pressurised [COMPLETED]
- Develop tech to patch it [COMPLETED]
- Build a POC Hydrogen Generator [COMPLETED]
- Fill Balloon with Hydrogen [COMPLETED]
- How long does it takes to fill? [TBA]
- Measure its lifting power and calculate its volume as per Hydrogen [DNF]
- Release the balloon on a tether and get it back [COMPLETED]
- Measure how long it stays pressurised [DNF]
- Final: Prepare a “message in a bottle” and release it [DNF]
Cost: $703.96 AUD
Phase II: Long Balloon (Fat guy)
This phase is to start again and simply do over most of what in the Phase I, just on a larger scale. Record all the values again and compare those with results of the previous phase. This phase can be extended with some more ideas to test future concepts
- Glue together a 3m3 balloon from Mylar (1x1x3m)
- Check if it can be pressurized with the air
- Check how long it stay pressurized
- Patch it where needed
- Make sure that Hydrogen Generator can produce 3m3 in some reasonable time (1w)
- Fill Balloon with Hydrogen
- How long does it takes to fill?
- Measure its lifting power and calculate its volume as per Hydrogen (looking forward to 2,5kg)
- Release the balloon on a tether and get it back
- Measure how long it stays pressurized
- Final: Prepare a “message in a bottle 2” and release it
Phase 3: Blimp trial – Zeppelin
Rough plan here really depends on how previous phases work out. In case that it won’t be a complete disaster we’ll be looking to see following:
- Design the cigar shape from Mylar
- Pressurize it and control the pressure (release only)
- Design the “basket”
- Attempt to build the basket from some light material (carbon fibre?)
- Get ideas on how to control this thing (Arduino)
- Get a budget & Buy material
Phase 100: Drone airship
Well, let’s start with Phase 1 😉
