The Space Cowboys are throwing us a party this Friday June 30th at Public Works, and we are STOKED! We’re raising some money to fund Noetica, and what better way to do that than by shaking our asses on the dance floor?

9p on Friday til the wee hours of Saturday morning, 161 Erie St (off Mission bw Duboce and 14th)… we’ll see you there!

Holler:  https://www.facebook.com/events/429542160751942

Just a quick post to show off some shots of the build for Saturday’s Precompression party. Were you there? We had a great time!

Crystin, Nicholas, Dan and Priscilla building up Noetica… pic by Carolyn W

Dan and Priscilla mounting a plink, our in-house term for the small cubic elements of Noetica. pic by Carolyn W

Priscilla shows off her tiny screwdriver. pic by Carolyn W

…aaand the Noetica controller, fully assembled! pic by Carolyn W

On Saturday we held an all-day plumbing workshop to get folks up to speed on how we control the propane in our sculptures, and then we built some poofers. Long-time plumber Diane explained how our big sculptures consume fuel, beginning from huge source tanks of liquid propane, then splitting into continuous and poofer flows, and then splitting further into all the individual pilot lights and accumulator tanks that are nested into our pieces. We talked a lot about how to safely manage propane in its different states, covering how things could go wrong and how we prevent these scenarios. And then we built some poofers that will be used on Noetica!

The first step is to remove the stock valve from a standard 5 gallon BBQ propane tank, so that we can put our own plumbing on it. Carolyn wrenches this one off with a cheater bar, while Swetha stands by to do the next one. photo by Gregg A

Discussing the finer points of a 12V solenoid, which is how we control the release of the propane in our accumulator tanks. photo by Cynthia H

Hethur tightens the nipple onto the top of the poofer, while Belen steadies the tank with her feet. photo by Gregg A

Our class produced eight new poofers, and we covered a lot of plumbing anatomy in our discussions. It was a great, sunny day to be working outside at the Boxshop!

Then on Sunday night, at the Desert Arts Preview, Hethur and Gregg gave the audience an overview of how Noetica is coming along, and showed off its kinetic elements.

Here’s the whole presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hu2hGNqVM24&list=PLvI7u3Blon027vvG5DGVLxyK-yr_plB03&index=8

Busy and productive times in FLG land! Wanna help out? Holler: info@flaminglotus.com. We welcome volunteers of all skill levels and genders.