False Profit Labs

Winter Project: Carbon Fiber Hot Tub

brett — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 03:29:22 +0000

If you’ve followed any of our hot tub antics in the past, then you already know about the inflatable hot tub party on Ocean Beach in San Francisco. A few years ago we built a heat exchanger that would use a bonfire to heat up salty ocean water.

This winter I’m taking on a new project, following our work on Carbon Garden: to build a hot tub entirely out of carbon fiber. Since fiberglass hot tubs are common, the same techniques should apply to building the carbon fiber tub. Step one is to come up with a pleasing design, and for this I’m using Rhino, a CAD software tool.

The 3D shape is sliced into multiple flat pieces along the black lines, which are then cut out of 1/2″ plywood on a shopbot CNC router. I’ve decided it will be easier to build the positive shape, so the mold will be more of a hump than a dish.

Here’s a video of the shopbot going at it too

Next the mold stays are assembled by cutting correct length support pieces (according to the CAD model) and screwing the whole thing together. Here’s an image of the mold partially assembled. In this shot the mold is upside down since it’s easier to put together that way. Eventually it gets flipped over and it will look more like a hump.

Once the mold stays are assembled, I’ll lay sheets of paperboard across it to complete the bowl shape, then like drywall, apply plaster and sand it perfectly smooth (don’t want any bumps on the interior of the hot tub of course). When the mold is complete it will be time to lay up the carbon fiber. But that’s for another rainy winter day…

A Desert Garden Grows

brett — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 05:09:58 +0000

Black Rock Desert, Northern Nevada - The question, What would grow on playa soil if anything could, was answered by a garden of carbon fiber flowers, dusty but glistening, simultaneously black and white by day, lit up in color and fire at night. Flowers whispering in fire, twisty and mysterious, some human height, some towering above, larger than our walkaday life.

The brutal desert forces, wind and dust, made their best exertions to push down these delicate sprouts, but could not match their strength or grace. When not an intense blustering whiteout, the blazing sun beat down on stem and bloom but were simply absorbed. And from that energy soaked up came night music. A blanket wash of sound, greeted desert comers of goggle, dread and blink. The swatches of showcase color and flicks of flame echoed gradients across black fabric petals stiffened to a form.

Photos by: JasonUnbound

People were people, evolving humans, humane to themselves, to each other, finding respite from the jungle, a patch of peace. Some were married in this place, some joked or at least smiled, some wanted to know how, some wanted to give gifts. We got the biggest gift of all. Thank you.

Off to the desert!

brett — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:14:08 +0000

Carbon Garden is ready to hit the road and get planted in its intended desert soil on the playa at Burning Man. Here’s a quick vid showing our crew hard at work. No idle hands round these parts the past few weeks. It’s been late nights, lots of pizza and chinese, a huge effort to get our new 12′ tall flowers standing tall. The tall flowers are made purely from carbon fiber, including the bloom, stamen, Flame Element holder, flanges, and stem. Thanks to everyone who helped make the project a reality!

Carbon Garden will be placed in the center of the playa, 700 feet from the Burning Man along the 4:30 axis. The Garden will be alight with fire and music each night from 9pm - 3am. There will also be two dawn sessions on Thursday and Saturday, with an acoustic concert on Saturday morning with surprise players.

Carbon Garden layout

brett — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 09:41:48 +0000

Here’s the layout for Carbon Garden as it will appear on the playa this year at Burning Man. The four gates will be each have two flaming carbon fiber towers, and infrared sensors to trigger music and flame behaviors as people enter and exit. We’ll be located 700 feet from the man along the invisible 4:30 line on your clock dial, pretty near to the Tea House, so it will indeed be quite a zen corner of the desert.

Oh, you’re the PDF type?

FPLabs Mobile Edition

brett — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:48:40 +0000

Because you want fire art delivered both to your desktop workstation and sent wirelessly to your handheld palm tricorder, False Profit Labs is here for you. Now, get FalseProfitLabs.com with dramatically different visual experience when delivered to an iPhone, Android or Blackberry Storm. Feeds and categories are more easily navigated, pages loaded faster.

Not good enough? Get a free download of False Profit and False Profit Labs mobile wallpapers here:
http://www.false-profit.com/fp-content/false-profit-mobile-backgrounds.zip

Look for our iLabs app that triggers your phone to burst into flames coming soon.

Live music acts wanted for Carbon Garden concert series

brett — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 00:57:34 +0000

Got a great live music act? Come perform in our Carbon Garden at Burning Man. We’ll be having at least one concert during the event some time Wed-Fri (tbd). Please send a video and song sampler to: brett [at] false-profit [dot] com.

Even larger carbon flower

brett — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 07:02:12 +0000

Our first 10′ tall carbon flower with a 42″ diameter bloom. Here’s a video showing what the flowers look like before trimming and stem attaching. This stem is also our first one made of pure carbon fiber. We used a biaxial twill sleeve from Soller Composites and laid it up over foam pool noodles. After applying epoxy the stretchy sleeve is folded to create a ribbing effect similar to bamboo.

Pool Noodles

Flashback: Burning Man 2003

brett — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 06:32:59 +0000

Back in 2003 my maniac friends and I thought it would be fun to start blowing bubbles with oxygen and acetylene and exploding them with a tiki torch. Who knew those were the early days of The Hydrogen Economy!

Fire at 5000 frames per second

brett — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 00:49:47 +0000

As you may know our esteemed False Profit Labs colleagues aren’t just fire artists, they’re scientists too! Well, that’s what they do during the day, and nights too when they’re at the Woods Hole Marine Biology Lab. But when they aren’t busy curing cancer and dissecting DNA they also like to record explosions at 5000 frames per second. Here’s a video made by and starring Dyche Mullins and Ethan Garner and other cool folks out in Massachusetts for the summer. Come for the super slow-mo explosions. Stay for the pressure waves of a slap across the face.

Carbon Garden music composition by Palindrome

brett — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 02:13:07 +0000

At Burning Man, Carbon Garden will enter its serene phase, black flowers urging their way out of the white dust, singing along in fire nightly. Now Palindrome (aka DJJD) introduces music compositions written for this setting and our flowers. You can listen to our mixdown sampler, though it will never be the same as what is played on the playa. That’s because this computer-generated music will respond to sensor inputs around the garden. It’s a dynamic composition comprised of a set of basic sounds then dynamically re-interpreted by motion in the garden.

Download Carbon14 Mixdown (30MB) 13:26