This year False Profit Labs is teaming up with Interpretive Arson and the Gray Area Arts Foundation to bring you a fire sculpture so big, so unique, so different we just couldn’t do it alone. Syzygryd (Syzy-what? SI-zee-grid) is a collaborative musical instrument that shoots fire. Syzygryd is made of steel cubes precision cut by robots then welded by us. Syzygryd is our latest Burning Man project, funded in part by an Honorarium Grant. We’re building it right now!

We need your help to fund Syzygryd’s FIRE! We have almost ten years of experience building safe and beautiful fire art, and we are excited to add sequenced flame effects to Syzygryd. The fire will rise up from the top of the center of the sculpture, culminating in a 10 to 20 ft tall fire tornado.

So check out this video, donate some money for a chance to win a custom flame effect made by us (seriously). And hey, don’t have the cash right now? We still love you, you’re the reason we do this in the first place, so drop us a line or come turn a wrench.

Go here to help us fund Syzygryd’s fire. For your donation, you’ll receive a fun treat, ranging from a sticker, all the way up to your own private event with Dance Dance Immolation or 2pir! And you might be lucky enough to win a custom flame effect that we build just for you. Now that’s better offer than an Obama Chia Pet!

Winter has become spring, so it’s time for an update on the carbon fiber hot tub side-project.  You see, it only looks like there’s been no progress, whereas in fact I’ve made many an attempt to cover the wood mold stays with an appropriate material that makes nice smooth curves that conform to the model’s compound shape.  I tried lots of experiments with foam and metal lath before ending up with slats of fiberboard tacked on with a pneumatic nailer.

Hot tub mold with fiberboard slats

As you can see it’s not quite done but well on its way.  The next step is to cover it with a peel ply mold release then fiberglass.  The peel ply prevents the fiberglass and epoxy from sticking to the fiberboard or wood.  Now the trick is how can I use Rhino, the 3D CAD modeling program to come up with an easy to cut fabric pattern that will properly fit the compound shape.  And as usual, Erik Walker had the answer.

I’ll break down the steps he showed me.  I figure I can manage a piece of fabric about two feet wide, so with an 8′ diameter bowl that makes about 12 pieces.  So first create 12 radials on the hot tub surface using a Polar Array with 12 pieces swept through 360.

Next two neighboring radials are projected on to the hot tub surface.  Then, before being able to unroll the projection, you have to create a new surface.  The trick is to keep it planar, so stay away from Curve Network and use Surface from Edge Curves.  Then Unroll Developable Surface to get the pattern that will be cut out.

In order to create some overlap, I selected the border curves then used Extend Curves to add an inch on all sides (two inch overlap between pieces).  Finally, add a chamfer to round the corners.  The final shape is exported as a DXF.  Since I’m not good at drawing patterns, I’ll use a CNC vinyl cutter then trace that on the fiberglass.

If you’ve followed any of our hot tub antics in the past, then you already know about the inflatable hot tub party on Ocean Beach in San Francisco. A few years ago we built a heat exchanger that would use a bonfire to heat up salty ocean water.

This winter I’m taking on a new project, following our work on Carbon Garden: to build a hot tub entirely out of carbon fiber.  Since fiberglass hot tubs are common, the same techniques should apply to building the carbon fiber tub.  Step one is to come up with a pleasing design, and for this I’m using Rhino, a CAD software tool.

The 3D shape is sliced into multiple flat pieces along the black lines, which are then cut out of 1/2″ plywood on a shopbot CNC router.  I’ve decided it will be easier to build the positive shape, so the mold will be more  of a hump than a dish.

Here’s a video of the shopbot going at it too

Next the mold stays are assembled by cutting correct length support pieces (according to the CAD model) and screwing the whole thing together. Here’s an image of the mold partially assembled.  In this shot the mold is upside down since it’s easier to put together that way.  Eventually it gets flipped over and it will look more like a hump.

Once the mold stays are assembled, I’ll lay sheets of paperboard across it to complete the bowl shape, then like drywall, apply plaster and sand it perfectly smooth (don’t want any bumps on the interior of the hot tub of course).  When the mold is complete it will be time to lay up the carbon fiber.  But that’s for another rainy winter day…

Black Rock Desert, Northern Nevada - The question, What would grow on playa soil if anything could, was answered by a garden of carbon fiber flowers, dusty but glistening, simultaneously black and white by day, lit up in color and fire at night.  Flowers whispering in fire, twisty and mysterious, some human height, some towering above, larger than our walkaday life.

The brutal desert forces, wind and dust, made their best exertions to push down these delicate sprouts, but could not match their strength or grace.  When not an intense blustering whiteout, the blazing sun beat down on stem and bloom but were simply absorbed.  And from that energy soaked up came night music.  A blanket wash of sound, greeted desert comers of goggle, dread and blink.  The swatches of showcase color and flicks of flame echoed gradients across black fabric petals stiffened to a form.

Photos by: JasonUnbound

People were people, evolving humans, humane to themselves, to each other, finding respite from the jungle, a patch of peace.  Some were married in this place, some joked or at least smiled, some wanted to know how, some wanted to give gifts.  We got the biggest gift of all.  Thank you.

Carbon Garden is ready to hit the road and get planted in its intended desert soil on the playa at Burning Man. Here’s a quick vid showing our crew hard at work. No idle hands round these parts the past few weeks. It’s been late nights, lots of pizza and chinese, a huge effort to get our new 12′ tall flowers standing tall. The tall flowers are made purely from carbon fiber, including the bloom, stamen, Flame Element holder, flanges, and stem. Thanks to everyone who helped make the project a reality!

Carbon Garden will be placed in the center of the playa, 700 feet from the Burning Man along the 4:30 axis.  The Garden will be alight with fire and music each night from 9pm - 3am.  There will also be two dawn sessions on Thursday and Saturday, with an acoustic concert on Saturday morning with surprise players.

Here’s the layout for Carbon Garden as it will appear on the playa this year at Burning Man.  The four gates will be each have two flaming carbon fiber towers, and infrared sensors to trigger music and flame behaviors as people enter and exit.  We’ll be located 700 feet from the man along the invisible 4:30 line on your clock dial, pretty near to the Tea House, so it will indeed be quite a zen corner of the desert.

Oh, you’re the PDF type?

Because you want fire art delivered both to your desktop workstation and sent wirelessly to your handheld palm tricorder, False Profit Labs is here for you.  Now, get FalseProfitLabs.com with dramatically different visual experience when delivered to an iPhone, Android or Blackberry Storm.  Feeds and categories are more easily navigated, pages loaded faster. 

Not good enough? Get a free download of False Profit and False Profit Labs mobile wallpapers here:
http://www.false-profit.com/fp-content/false-profit-mobile-backgrounds.zip

Look for our iLabs app that triggers your phone to burst into flames coming soon.

Got a great live music act?  Come perform in our Carbon Garden at Burning Man.  We’ll be having at least one concert during the event some time Wed-Fri (tbd).  Please send a video and song sampler to: brett [at] false-profit [dot] com.

Our first 10′ tall carbon flower with a 42″ diameter bloom.  Here’s a video showing what the flowers look like before trimming and stem attaching.  This stem is also our first one made of pure carbon fiber.  We used a biaxial twill sleeve from Soller Composites and laid it up over foam pool noodles.  After applying epoxy the stretchy sleeve is folded to create a ribbing effect similar to bamboo.

Back in 2003 my maniac friends and I thought it would be fun to start blowing bubbles with oxygen and acetylene and exploding them with a tiki torch. Who knew those were the early days of The Hydrogen Economy!