Check out this floating foam letter machine that was shown off at last year’s IFA show in Berlin, the German equivalent of CES. The contraption is called Flogos, and comes from a company named SnowMasters based out of Alabama.
The Flogos machine consists of a helium and compressed air bubble generator positioned below a custom stencil cutout. As the bubbles form, they are forced into a relatively tight formation as they exit the stencil. Once a nice thick layer is established, a small plastic arm is dragged across the surface, liberating the foam from the stencil allowing it to float through the sky as you can see in the video below.
We think it’s pretty cool, and we wouldn’t mind having one around just for kicks. If you were to lay some stencils over a tweaked version of this foam generator we featured last year, you could probably have your own floating foam printer up and running in no time.
Stick around to see the video from IFA that originally caught our attention.
[Thanks DMF]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN-mfQsno2g&w=470]
Very clever! I like that it’s not over-engineered. Stencils work just fine.
Why waste good Helium when Hydrogen might add some effects potential?
Dyes+ Lasers with enough Testes to provide Foam Ignition- even on a “Per Color” granularity being one path to investigate.
This is a VERY nice basic concept Hack that may end up spawning many Stunning derivatives.
I will be trying to clone this someday.
I’m not a big fan of pissing helium away into space.
@bob: better start stockpiling then, because right now helium is inexpensive and available to anyone who wants to inflate balloons!
Helium is a non-renewable gas. Any bulk users of helium (eg NASA) are careful not to waste it; not just to keep costs down but because they know it’s non-renewable.
@abobymouse
When they finally get fusion plants up and running, we will have plenty of helium! But you’ll want to stock up on hydrogen.
@abobymouse
NASA waste things? Don’t be ridiculous.
http://www.nasa.gov/offices/oce/appel/ask-academy/issues/volume3/AA_3-3_F_helium.html
Ok, that’s beautyfull. But… :
-How much soap did they spread in environnement just to make their demo ?
-Is hackaday the right place to speak about something that shows its patent number everywhere on the website ?
@abobymouse
I feel this thing uses far less helium, than your average child’s brithday party. think HUGE waste of helium there. At least this thing is fun
Wow… try following MAKE: online and you would have seen this almost two years ago… Still cool, and the laser+hydrogen addition…… good idea Oren!!!
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/08/commercial-technology-for-floating.html
Needs coloured bubbles.
Now suspend a throwie in it …
Or @Oren
Make it a game … Shoot the err logo?
That is very cool for sure :)
It’s like cartoon smoke signals, except for real.
Like for these comments, M4CGYV3R, Oren Beck, abobymouse
@fabien, Who cares if they’ve got a patent number on their site? And it is a form of physical advertising that doesn’t leave any actual trash left over so I will overlook the minuscule bit of bubble liquid spread into the environment by the few of these machines that exist. If you want to complain about environmental stuff http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/03/us/03spill.html
Hydrogen and a laser sounds awesome.
If they made a matrix of holes that could be opened and closed they’d have a dot-matrix foam printer.
Helium is non-renewable? Doesn’t it go right back where it came from (i.e. the atmosphere) just to be harvested again?
@notmyfault and others: of course Helium is renewable if you are counting on another “Big-Bang”….
@notmyfault2000: Helium is refined from natural gas deposits. It’s too light to stay in the atmosphere and eventually floats off into space. Natural gas reserves are directly proportional to helium reserves.
I call toast. This thing was posted ages ago.
Possibly not from these people though
Mr Oren Beck, please forgive my ignorance, but what “Dyes+ Lasers with enough Testes to provide Foam Ignition” really means?
This is a neat machine, would be great at our meetings (not everyone listens) colored bubbles would be great but UV bubble mix would be better and have a much cooler effect at night. Sell these to the ravers and you have your main market.
@Trivino:
I’m just a working stiff often called a “Senior Engineer” So bear with me a moment while I flesh out the concepts behind my comment.
In one overly simplistic explanation:
Dyes WILL burn if you pump enough thermal energy in. Power level= Testes AkA “Balls” in crude terminology..
I’ve been asked by PM to expand on this for a few folks waiting for me to prototype something.. Be patient on a model- my Real Soon Now list’s a bit full. But for the moment- here’s the fleshing out:
Your basic “bubble” of any soap based chemistry tends to be mostly transparent at the single bubble level. That “mostly” qualifier applies to effects like scattering and diffraction which in bulk masses of bubbles produce an appearance of “white” as the reflectivity averages a net balance.
Which makes any color of Laser inherently be reflected plus diffused by each bubble’s inner and outer wall. Further details like power per unit of area calcs are out of scope here.
The simplest videos showing the effect are those of a red Laser bursting a blue balloon inside a red balloon.
Thus, dyes could potentially reproduce the effect in dyed masses of bubbles.
Oh, there’s a whole basic field we could play “Laser Whack-A-Bubble” in. By tuning dye and bubble ratios to interact with Lasers of varied color, focus and beam diameter.
IF any of us make something AWESOME from all this- do please open source it as a matter of Karma..
Using 100% O2 in some foam areas and 100% H2 in others could make it go from ignition to detonation..
Don’t try that one– EVER, lest ye wish to meet Darwin.
The history lesson to close this for now describes how a Razor blade became a unit of relative Laser power:
http://www.techrepublic.com/article/geek-trivia-measures-for-leisure/6070431
But of cause you might run into problems shining lasers up into the sky.
How totally utterly disgusting and wasting helium :'(
someone please give idea about how to make helium gas at home with cheap and accident free method. or can we use hydrogen in place of helium, what would be effect if we use home made hydrogen