Project Logs

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• Setting Some Basic Rules

  frankstripod • 03/17/2015 at 08:08 • 0 comments

  Everyone is welcome! Please volunteer!
  

  Don't feel like your not in the right place on the map, because I may plot several
  courses not outlined here, even around the world.

  Don't feel like your not qualified or don't even have the equipment, because even I will have to borrow or steal a video camera for this. Some may end up contributing in other ways

  Your video may or may not be used, but your participation is always appreciated!

  If you "Followed" or gave a "Skull," thank you so much for your support, but that does not mean you volunteered to help.

  There are still a lot of details missing, and I am hoping to get a lot of community input as this gets larger.

  If you volunteer, I would like to add your HaD.io profile name as a project team member, and put an unlabeled place marker on my map for the general location of your town. If you would prefer to keep that private, please send me a private message saying so.

  We might need to do several partial test runs.

  I might ask you for a photo or video from your location only, as a test.

  We may have to do this more than once to get it right.

  I am calling this an "Open Art Project," which means that me or no one else is doing this for money. We all participate, and we all share it for free. So that I can keep the true spirit of "openess"…

  If you volunteer, you agree to the following rules:

  • All videos and pictures are yours and have no copyrights or other bindings.
  • You release all rights without compensation for all materials, videos and pictures.
  • Please make sure there are no advertisements, product names, company or group endorsements, video overlays, water marks, or illegal activities in your videos or pictures.
  • These rules may change at any time, and its up to you to keep up with them.

• Earths rotational speed vs latitude, and how wrong I was about 1050mph

  frankstripod • 03/15/2015 at 01:11 • 0 comments

  Like most people I criticize, I myself started spewing "facts" as an authority about a subject after only a one minute internet search. It seamed pretty straight forward in the first 60 seconds of my ignorance:
  Circumference x Time = Speed.
  The article below sums up an "apparent solar day," taking into account the Earth's rotation around the sun, but more importantly, how latitude effects your relative speed of the sun to the horizon. Near the equator your speed reaches about 1040mph (1673km/h), but as you move up north (or south away from the equator,) the circumference traveled reduces. (specially "Angular speed" section):
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_rotation#cite_note-38

  The simple rough equation to approximate your speed (tangent speed of Earth's rotation according to latitude) is:
  Current speed = Speed at the equator x COS(Angel of latitude in degrees)
  or
  V = Veq Cos(A)

  More accurately, if you like math, circumference (C) of the distance traveled at the point of your latitude (A in degrees) is,
  C = 2πRcos(A)
  Where R is the radius of the Earth at the equator, then,
  Velocity = C / T
  Where T is time in hours for one "sidereal day," as mentioned here:
  http://www.castor2.ca/16_Calc/03_Rotation/index.html

  This makes for some interesting estimations by my calculations:

  • Equator = 1040mph = 1673km/h
  • Florida = 912mph = 1468km/h
  • Colorado = 809mph = 1303km/h
  • Alaska = 446mph = 718km/h

  Which means you only need about half the speed to chase the sun in Nome Alaska as compared to Cape Canaveral Florida.

  This has very little to do with the virtual portion of this project, but would make the possibility of a real rocket project much more feasible.

• Rocket vs People

  frankstripod • 03/15/2015 at 00:32 • 9 comments

  For clarity: This project will stay as the virtual rocket. If a physical rocket becomes a reality, it will fork into its own separate project.
  

  Yeah I want a rocket!!! What hacker wouldn't jump at the opportunity to put a nose cone on a tube of explosives and watch it as they push the detonator :) If I had the resources I probably would have blown up a really nice video recorder by now.
  In the first moments of developing this project of chasing the sun, I thought what any sane hacker would; "How can I get a vehicle over a 1000mph?" A rocket might fit that solution nicely.

  Log Objective: Start to determine the advantages and disadvantages for real rocket and a virtual rocket for this project, for the unlikely chance I might get to do both!

  Virtual Advantages:

  • No government authorities or restrictions, and no minimum altitude or speed.
  • Ground level perspective familiar to most people, but at speeds normally only seen from orbit.
  • Low cost.
  • Time line manipulation.
  • A large number of people socially or emotionally benefit from all participating in a large Community Open Art Project that we all own.

  Virtual Disadvantages:
  

  • Dead zones where no one will volunteer, causing gaps.
  • Human factor: Many of the people I have met in this world can't even program their own TV. How could a simple guy like me get a mass of people to all operate a camera the same way at the same time? I am not saying its impossible. I would have also dismissed artistic flash mobs and crowdfunding if you asked me before they happened. Maybe in a subconscious way I really want to see this work to restore my faith in humans and art. Maybe we could all use a little of that.

  Rocket Advantages:
  

  • Rocket engines have a fantastic power to weight ratio.
  • Speed may be just fast enough to get what I need. (because I was initially wrong about the Earths rotation and the speeds I would need.)
  • No need to have an enormous amount of locations, thus eliminating volunteers and human error.
  • Rockets are freaking Cool!

  Rocket Disadvantages:

  • I have not found any information of anyone doing stable horizontal rocket flight. Isn't this the type of thing that sets off red flags for governments?
  • Getting a precise launch time would be impossible. Knowing when the ideal light is best over the entire length of the trip would be a guess, thus requiring at least several launches.
  • Burn times stink! Even with multiple stages, my ideal 3000 mile (4828km) video may be impossible anywhere on this planet. This chart seemed to closely match other data I found for hobby rockets:

  Stolen from: http://microgravity.grc.nasa.gov/education/rocket/rktenglab.html

  This Log Inspired by "Buzz Giver"@Dimitar Tomov

• First Log

  frankstripod • 03/12/2015 at 02:25 • 9 comments

  First Log: Original description and mixed thoughts.
  

  I want make a moving (1050mph minimum) time lapse video of a sunset at ground level, but fireing rockets at high speeds over populated areas inside controlled airspace is kind of illegal. This could be faked by having cameras set up in a straight line, evenly distributed over a long distance, but impossible for one person.

  This will require thousands of volunteer photographers. Anyone interested?

  The long boring confession: I have been doing photography for a very very long time. I love watching the sunrise and sunset, even more than robots. One day I was traveling west between 300-400mph (not exact, I was not paying attention at the time), and staring at a beautiful sunset unfolding through my window. Because I was chasing the sun on the horizon, I thought this will be the longest sunset I have seen. This is not a desired thing among most humans, because I have only encountered a handful of people with enough patience to sit through an entire sunset, let alone a sunrise. I wondered how fast I would need to go to make it last indefinitely.

  Set Up:

  Need to set up volunteer map:

  Got four already! I am looking for a straight line, but will take what I can get.

  Need to set up equipment and video requirements:

  Orientation: It would be nice if everyone had the same camera on the same settings, but I think that would be impossible.

  
  

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