Once upon a time, my dad got me a remote control blimp kit for a birthday or something. It languished all this time for lack of the energy to (heh, heh) get it off the ground. But now, tonight, the blimp has taken flight.
This thing is basically two components: (1) a four foot long oval mylar balloon. (2) A twin-prop, reversible fan doo-hickey which can be controlled with a fairly standard el-cheapo handheld remote.
I got the balloon inflated at a local party store today, and learned something unexpected. If you want attention, get a really big shiny balloon. People were talking to me in the store, in the parking lot, everywhere. Sad but true. If you want to be the center of attention, get a big shiny thing and walk around with it. Then I attached the fan doo-hickey. I ended up using double sided tape instead of the “adhesive” putty that came with it. The first few times that the motors fell off as the blimp rocketed towards the ceiling were fun…but the game got old. Finally, I weighted the beast to just barely positive buoyancy with double stick tape and batteries. I now have a blimp that can motor around the ceiling, and a cool trailing ribbon for the cats to play with.
All just in time for the party. Woo-hoo.
In other news, we’ve got pictures from previous Halloweens on a slideshow loop on the TV, playing off the video out of my laptop. Some days, I love being a geek.
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