This is a hot air balloon made from trash bags and heated by the sun. Once airborne, it should stay up 'til the sun goes down or behind the clouds. Needless to say, it can travel a long, long way. Attached to it is a "message-in-a-bottle" asking anyone who might find it to email their location, just to see how far it flew. There's just something romantic about a message seeking out who-knows-whom in far away who-knows-where.
As a note, as boys, my brother and I lived on a tidal river in Florida. Walking the mangroves, we found a couple of messages-in-bottles that people sent. One came from another state. It said something like, "Send a postcard with your address and we'll send a present." My brother sent a note and sure enough they sent back a King James Bible (it was a "Fishing for Men" outreach project by a Georgia church). He still has that Bible. It was inspiring to think of how far that message had come and the path that it took. The magic of a message-in-a-bottle is to imagine, "Where will it go?" and, "Who will find this?"
As a note, as boys, my brother and I lived on a tidal river in Florida. Walking the mangroves, we found a couple of messages-in-bottles that people sent. One came from another state. It said something like, "Send a postcard with your address and we'll send a present." My brother sent a note and sure enough they sent back a King James Bible (it was a "Fishing for Men" outreach project by a Georgia church). He still has that Bible. It was inspiring to think of how far that message had come and the path that it took. The magic of a message-in-a-bottle is to imagine, "Where will it go?" and, "Who will find this?"
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Signing UpStep 1: Materials and Tools
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Materials
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1. Trash bags -- They must be THIN, I used 0.6 mil but the thinner the better. Most quality bags are heavy, at least 1.0 mil. We want the cheap-O bags.
2. Tape -- I used regular masking tape. Likely scotch tape is okay too. Don't use the wide package tape though--too heavy.
3. Thread
4. Pen and paper
5. Plastic bottle -- I actually had to get rid of the bottle because it added too much weight.
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Tools
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1. Scissors
2. Blow drier
Materials
-----------------------------------------
1. Trash bags -- They must be THIN, I used 0.6 mil but the thinner the better. Most quality bags are heavy, at least 1.0 mil. We want the cheap-O bags.
2. Tape -- I used regular masking tape. Likely scotch tape is okay too. Don't use the wide package tape though--too heavy.
3. Thread
4. Pen and paper
5. Plastic bottle -- I actually had to get rid of the bottle because it added too much weight.
-----------------------------------------
Tools
-----------------------------------------
1. Scissors
2. Blow drier
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I'm a deputy sheriff in southern California and we've recently had several training bulletins about people filling trash bags with various explosive gases. The training bulletins described these as “improvised explosive devices (I.E.D’s)” and described an incident where one of these exploded when several officers approached it. This particular device caused injury to the officers.
Now I know that this “device” is harmless and uses nothing more than air but I would point out that should a “over-zealous” police officer/deputy sheriff/state trooper find one of these with a name, address or some other way of finding out who released one of these, they might try to prosecute that person for making an explosive device. If the bag has become deflated, it could be said that the explosive gas had escaped and dissipated. It would then be on the maker to prove that it was filled with nothing more than hot air.
Now whether someone gets convicted of this is another matter but whoever made one of these would have to go through the ordeal of court and all that entails. Yes, most of us in law enforcement are level-headed, common-sense type people but we all know that there are some in Law Enforcement and in the court system that go by the letter of the law, not the spirit of the law. We see some of them in the news from time to time. And what if you get a jury that believes the prosecutor over your attorney.
Unfortunately, in this day and age, something as innocent as this can be turned into something entirely different. Just a word of advice.
Below are two links to video of what I would call individuals of lessor intellegence using something similar to this "device." These links were actually part of the training bulletin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFENJTHiElk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF5l4nl1P4U&feature=related
1) You're a law enforcement official within the borders of the U.S. who thinks the burden of proof is on the accused.
2) You're a law enforcement official within the borders of the U.S. who would advise citizens not to pursue certain lawful activities because it might trigger an incompetent reaction from your fellow law enforcement officials.
I guess there's no big problem with (1) since you're not going to be passing judgement on anyone and there are people who do know the basics of the law running the courts. On the other hand (2) gives me pause, since your advice is essentially to avoid doing things that reveal governmental incompetence and the underlying (systematic?) misallocation of power to those who would misuse it.
Good information to have, in a way.
It's a good thing that people are innocent until PROVEN guilty.
Every party needs a pooper, that's why we invited you...
Really I'm just kidding, please don't invoke the so called patriot act and come arrest me.
Peace
Gill
No offense taken. I've been doing this job too long (over 30 yrs and planning on "pulling the pin" next year) to get my feathers ruffled over stuff like that. Just ignore the black helicopters, tho. ;-)
Take care & stay safe.
Mark
I have to take issue with your comment,
"If the bag has become deflated, it could be said that the explosive gas had escaped and dissipated. It would then be on the maker to prove that it was filled with nothing more than hot air. "
Given that its possible for trash bags to end up all over the place, do the police really waste time treating them all as IEDs that have had the "gas dissipate".
Also, do you really thing that someone who has left a name tag on it, would do so if there was any nefarious intent.
Can you imagine, "Hey, if this IED didn't detonate properly, please call 1866 TERRORIST"
Really.
I know that we're talking apples and oranges here, in regards to an inflated bag verses a criminal incident, but with the financial situation of the country, I don't see it as a great leap that cities/counties/states charging for the cost of law enforcement and/or other emergency service response. Heck, I know of some agencies that are going to start charging for law enforcement response to a traffic collisions. I'm not saying that I agree with it by any stretch, but it's been put out there and may be coming to a city/county near you.
Again, this is all just food for thought. It is best to think of the "worst case" of any situation before attempting it. If you plan for the "worst case" you might avoid it actually happening.
Thanks for posting your comments - you obviously posted out of concern for Joe Instructablefollower and out of your concern for the wasted time of your brother officers called out on a 'dangerous trashbag' call.
To all the negative posters: please lighten up: he's not saying the *you* are jerks, just that some folks might overreact. He wants to protect you, for crying out loud, from overzealous cops in your area. Got level-headed folks out there in the country? Have at it. Live in Southern California or upwind from an airport? Might rethink it.
time to go after the real criminals.
a deflated bin bag, could have blown off the back of a garbage truck. People need to start applying some common sense.
a little bit of power and they think they have a blank check.
Damp air is lighter than dry air. Maybe you can inflate the balloon with your lungs (many persons, because it is a great volume) instead of the hair drier. That should give it longer scope/range.
Water is made up of two hydrogen and one oxygen atoms (H2O). Hydrogen is the lightest element and has a molecular weight of one. So a water molecule has a molecular weight of 18 (2 * 1 + 1 * 16 = 18). Water is a very light molecule and much lighter than the average weight of the molecules found in air.
as you can see above water vapor is lighter than air, and when the air is moist, water vapor displaces an amount of air (replacing heavier air with lighter water vapor), thereby making the moist air lighter. Of course the temperature and pressures must be the same for this to be true.
Included is a link to calculate weight of dry air, moist air and amount of water vapor in moist air.
https://www.brisbanehotairballooning.com.au/faqs/education/116-calculate-air-density.html
Here, you have X grams of water in the form of vapor inside the bag (if you do the trick he suggested). Once the surface of the bag cools below the dewpoint for that humidity, those same X grams will drop out of vapor form into liquid water on the inside of the bag. But you won't ADD mass - it will just be in a different form.
By turning the vapor into liquid the bag's volume will decrease (since X grams of liquid water is a lot smaller than X grams of water vapor - remember the capped steaming tin can demo in high school). Thus the total mass of the airship will still be there but the volume will have dropped, making it more dense (density being mass/volume), so it will lose bouyancy.
Now put the hydrogen and oxygen into a bond and use the right formulation to calculate the weight of water,
The water will make the thing too heavy to fly, and you'll be too dead to observe the effect.
The dryer the air the lighter it will be. The less you compress air the lighter it will be also.