The Fish And Chips 5000!
Well after Europe I flew to Minnesota for a family reunion for 5 days. My family is full of very unorthodox thinkers which is the only way we were able to come up with the FAC5000.
Essentially it is a potato cannon combined with a fishing pole.
If you don't know what a potato cannon is, it's a long 2" diameter piece of PVC that serves as the barrel attached to a 3" diameter piece of PVC that serves as the combustion chamber, capped with a sparker. It works by ramming an oversized potato down the barrel until it's at the chamber end, unscrewing the sparker and spraying three seconds of Aqua Net in (a super combustible aerosol), sealing very quickly, and then using the sparker. This creates a massive burst of energy in the airtight combustion engine that fires the potato very quickly out of the barrel.
If you don't know what a fishing pole is, you might want to stop reading.
Basically the way we attached the two components was we zip-tied/ epoxyed a reel to the side of the combustion chamber and then epoxyed/ duct taped several grommets to the side of the barrel. The way this works is you take a hook (that's attached to the line, which is in turn spooled around the reel) and press the upper most part (not the hook, the curved bit) into the potato.
What this lets you do is fire the potato 80 meters out into a lake (we were along Lake Superior) and then yank the line which draws the hook out of the potato. Then all you do is reel it back in!
This might be a terrible way of catching a fish, but it was fun thinking of and building.
Here are some pics:
My cousin Gabe with the cannon:
My cousin Max branding it with a magic marker:
Me standing there, saying this will never work:
Essentially it is a potato cannon combined with a fishing pole.
If you don't know what a potato cannon is, it's a long 2" diameter piece of PVC that serves as the barrel attached to a 3" diameter piece of PVC that serves as the combustion chamber, capped with a sparker. It works by ramming an oversized potato down the barrel until it's at the chamber end, unscrewing the sparker and spraying three seconds of Aqua Net in (a super combustible aerosol), sealing very quickly, and then using the sparker. This creates a massive burst of energy in the airtight combustion engine that fires the potato very quickly out of the barrel.
If you don't know what a fishing pole is, you might want to stop reading.
Basically the way we attached the two components was we zip-tied/ epoxyed a reel to the side of the combustion chamber and then epoxyed/ duct taped several grommets to the side of the barrel. The way this works is you take a hook (that's attached to the line, which is in turn spooled around the reel) and press the upper most part (not the hook, the curved bit) into the potato.
What this lets you do is fire the potato 80 meters out into a lake (we were along Lake Superior) and then yank the line which draws the hook out of the potato. Then all you do is reel it back in!
This might be a terrible way of catching a fish, but it was fun thinking of and building.
Here are some pics:
My cousin Gabe with the cannon:
My cousin Max branding it with a magic marker:
Me standing there, saying this will never work:
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"If you don't know what a fishing pole is, you might want to stop reading. "
Haha, did it work? That is a crazy idea. Family reunions ftw! I live in MN, but ours is in South Dakota... no water there so we would never think of something like that, so instead we tape different fireworks together. |
 
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Recent Blog Entries by Zinmasterb
- The Fish And Chips 5000! (08-13-2008)
