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February 09, 2007
Into the lair of the ALAVs....
Hi this is Jason Dietrich again. Last week I was in Sunny-Southern-California on a work-related trip and had a chance to talk to Jed Berk of Art Center Pasedena. For the past year and a half or so, Jed has been building a flock of"Autonomous Lighter than Air Vessels". These "creatures" exhibit a range of interactive behaviors both with each other and with individuals in the room with them. You can even call an ALAV on your cell phone! How cool is that?
Jed was able to give me some valuable pointers on blimp design, from easy ways to ballast blimps, to parts suppliers, and so on. I have to say I'm a little jealous of his custom-made poly-propelyne blimp envelopes. His chassis designs, based on two pieces of laser-cut plastic sheeting folded in on themselves, was really trick. His website explains it better than I can here! Check it out - www.alavs.com!
Posted by rasputin at February 9, 2007 11:37 AM