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Well, since it's the off-season, 1293 decided to get creative for the Chapin Labor Day Parade this coming Monday.
So, now strapped to the back of Ockham's Raizor, is a massive, functioning, FIRST-legal-if-you-ignore-the-solution, bubble maker.
We've got a 2005 FP motor turning a wheel with several bubble wands attached, which dips the wands into the solution. The large muffin fan on the top of the assembly does the actual blowing of bubbles. (Both are wired to Victors to control speed.)
I'm not sure if it's as interesting as our window motor drivetrain in 2004, but it sure is fun.
Discussion
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09-05-2005 06:18 PM
Billfred
Re: pic: BUBBLES!
Goodness, that was an experience.
We had a few kinks at the Chapin Labor Day Parade, but we made it.
As for the bubble maker, it fell victim to a couple things. First, I think the potentiometers to control the rotation of the fan and Fisher-Price motor we used might be of questionable quality. Second, all the jumping around (in no small part because of the turns with us pushing or lifting the pneumatic wheels) led to the bubble solution sloshing around, creating a unbubblable situation. Thirdly, the knobs of the controls kept rubbing against our driver, which made the Fisher-Price motor speed up, making it essentially a giant egg-beater that only made more suds.
So for anyone planning on replicating this design: make sure you can control your motors right, and hope you don't slosh around too much!
(We've got one more parade, the Irmo Okra Strut Parade, coming up later this month. With any amount of luck, we'll have it knocked out by then.)
09-05-2005 10:29 PM
Al Skierkiewicz
Re: pic: BUBBLES!
Looks pretty cool though. New nickname is Lawrence Welk.
"Wella Wella!"
09-05-2005 10:45 PM
Jay H 237
Re: pic: BUBBLES!
If you added a baffle in there, even a partial one, it would help keep the fluid from sloshing around so much and turning into foam. You could put two in there, one in front and one in back with a gap between them to allow the wands to dip into the fluid. This will still allow easy refill of the fluid.
If you're using stock bubble fluid and the fan is still running a little to fast breaking some of the bubbles, you can add a spoonful or so of Dawn to each "tank full" to improve the bubbles survival rate. Just don't get too crazy with the Dawn, I already made that mistake in a Halloween cauldren on our front lawn. 1 bottle of Dawn equaled 1 big bubble mess on my front lawn............although the kids liked it! 
11-09-2005 09:24 PM
Billfred
Re: pic: BUBBLES!
Actually, for anyone attempting to duplicate such a thing, we think we might have a solution for the solution problem (pun very much intended).
It turns out that many bubble makers use a completely round disk with holes inside to bring the solution to the fan. This, it appears, was our big mistake; by having those big, long stalks sticking out, we were just begging to whip up the solution and make foam.
11-27-2005 03:31 PM
Barry Bonzack
Re: pic: BUBBLES!
Coming Soon: Colored bubbles. Scientists have found what they have called the holy grail of toys; how to add color to bubbles. This new product called Zubbles will be in toys stores soon. You can have your team colors coming out of your robot soon :-D I'll see if I can find the article soon, but check out the videos of these things... Black bubbles look creepy.
zubbles.com
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