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comment by elizabeth
elizabeth  ·  658 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: June 8, 2022

Got the poofer to work today!!!! There are still things to finish up but I’m happy we got it to poof - and learned a ton. The hardest part was just sourcing some of the parts, but now I know where to find stuff in the city. The only thing they didn’t work out is getting a whistle valve - turns out they are crazy expensive. Cheapest one we found was 200$ which made no sense with our 500$ budget. So it’s a bit less satisfying but we went for a simple ball valve for the control.

Looking to source some missing parts for our steel 360 seesaw too. About 2 week until the event and we didn’t start building yet. My friend found most of the materials at least. I feel a bit bad not helping so far and probably not being too useful in the coming build but I did the part he would have never - getting the grant money. I tried helping the conception, and engeneer minded people at work just got me sidetracked with over complicated computer models when all I asked was metal purchase advice.

Loosing focus at work. I’m really not excited about it anymore and a bit burned out. Feels like I’m wrangling volunteers to do chores. Doing projects with people that are having fun is way nicer. Buckling in to tough it out through the summer. Then hopefully off to India, and then something new. I don’t know what yet.





ButterflyEffect  ·  657 days ago  ·  link  ·  

What is the poofer? Are there old posts you made on the "poofer" that maybe I'm missing?

elizabeth  ·  656 days ago  ·  link  ·  

A flame effect with propane that goes "POOF!"

It's a pretty well documented concept, but it was both our first time building one with my friend and I learned a ton. Here is the schematics he drew, I might print it on a shirt or something (but I like the hand-labelled version he did better, will scan it when I get my hands on it)

Here is me feeling happy the first time it poofed:

goobster  ·  653 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I worked with the Iron Monkeys on a couple of their big fire art projects, and as you play with your new poofer you are going to learn some really fascinating stuff as the propane tank ices up.

As gas is expelled from the tank, it cools the tank, which causes condensation to form on the outside, and as the tank cools, the propane flow weakens, and your poofer will get weaker and weaker.

What we did for our big fire art pieces was to have a water tank and hoses wrapped around the propane tanks. The water was heated by the fire art, and the warm water running in the hoses around the tanks kept them from icing up, and kept the flow of propane consistent throughout the night.

FIRE ART IS FUN.