First off, the club administration has decided to rename the strandbeest project to the windwalker project due to the fact that “strandbeest” loosely translates to “beach animal”, and our structure has very little hope of ever seeing the ocean. Also, our structure has become distinct enough from Theo Jansen’s design that it warrants its own name.
The members of the windwalker project made a significant amount of progress on the prototype at the meeting. The first set of 4 legs is essentially complete, the only thing that remains to be built is the structure holding the two legs apart at a fixed distance. The next set of 4 legs is almost finished as well, so we should have a functional prototype to show people by the end of the next meeting. I will also be posting pictures of the windwalker in the next meeting summary.
The microsatellite project worked on a new concept that may allow us to use the hydrogen from the balloons as a propellant for what we have dubbed “stage 3/2”.
The general concept that we discussed is using a contractable netting around the balloon which will enable us to force the hydrogen through an exhaust chamber quicker than it would naturally. We could then inject oxygen into the exhaust chamber and then use this reaction to propel the whole balloon-rocket system to a greater altitude.
The stuff in the upper-right corner is a potential structure we could use for a 3-balloon system, the stuff below that is a potential system we could use to control when the netting would actually contract. The stuff in the middle is just some pictures of the balloon with the netting on it, as well as the exhaust chamber.
After the meeting, we (and by we I mean Joe) realized that hydrogen and oxygen might not combust at the pressures we’re dealing with, which may make this idea not work. However, we have a possible solution to this, but it would most likely just add another level of complication.
We also have been discussing another alternative option for the initial propulsion for stage 2 that we need to run some calculations on and should have some numbers to work with before the next meeting.