Ephemerisle art idea fleshed out

[mattbell]

Blurb:

For some, the Dandelions will be a metaphor for the spread of civilization and new ideas onto the ocean, a further diaspora of the human race.  For others, the Dandelions will be giant climbable floating koosh balls made from pool noodles, and the most important thing about them will be whether they can climb to the top of one without falling over.   Either way, having one or more of these Dandelions floating around in the middle of the swim area will add aesthetic and fun value to the Ephemerisle experience.

Here’s a quick mock-up showing the concepts for the 9 foot diameter and 13 foot diameter versions:

 

It turns out Dollar Tree sells 48" pool noodles for $1 each, which enables this project to be done for a relatively low price.

Comments

[easwaran.livejournal.com]

How did you manage to make a "quick mock-up" like this? That looks like it would take as much work as the real thing. Unless this is somehow photoshopped?

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Oh man... all I did was some quick photoshopping of an image of a koosh into a scene from ephemerisle last year, with the koosh scaled up to the appropriate size. I'm impressed it fooled anyone, even briefly.

[peristaltor.livejournal.com]

Noodle climb!

[veleda.livejournal.com]

giant koosh ball seems fun.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

Have you figured out how many noodles you need yet?

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

Oh, and it occurred to me another option would be pipe insulation tubes. Admittedly the colors are less interesting, but I think they come in narrower varieties than pool noodles do.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

I thought about those too. They appear to be more expensive though, at least at Home Depot.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

I did find some for less but maybe not after you include shipping and it's the small stuff: http://www.thegreathardwarestore.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=453456&click=2744 (somehow I don't think "only in quantities of 70" will be a problem :) )

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Cool... that one is 6' long, which is longer than the noodles I'm looking at. But yeah, the gray takes away from the aesthetics.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

It only seems to come in grey. What gives? Don't people want HAPPY PIPES??

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

I definitely want happy pipes.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

I did some quick mockups with a few pool noodles, and it looks like 18 noodles per 1/8 sphere slice is a decent number. So that's 144 total.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

What are you gonna use to hold them together in the center?

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Small black hole. Actually, I'm going to use some zip ties to very tightly friction-attach some rope to the ends of the noodles, and then I'm going to lock all of the rope tips together with a carabiner. I'll have one carabiner for each 1/8 portion of the sphere, and then all the 8 carabiners will lock together with a ninth carabiner. (This way I can break it down into 8 sections for easy transport)

[mary-wroth.livejournal.com]

I was going to ask this question. The rope/carabiner approach makes a lot of sense actually.

[badgerbag.livejournal.com]

Oh man I just thought. How about if we bring a lot of pool noodles prepped with rope loops and zip ties and carabiners, so that people can put them together all sorts of ways? Like floaty K'nex.

[badgerbag.livejournal.com]

good plan. i can't wait to try this! I might not wait to try it, in fact!

if you want to come try it at my boat, there are empty slips and no one would mind.

[nasu-dengaku.livejournal.com]

Hey... that would be useful. I might take you up on that. Are you going to Ephemerisle?

[badgerbag.livejournal.com]

Yes I am going - I have various ideas - and will blog them, although we likely won't have the energy or time to do them all. emailing...

[laughingstone.livejournal.com]

wow, neato!