IamKosta.org

Gondola Wiring

About a month or two ago I was put to the task of creating the gondola; a clear acrylic piece of engineering that was designed to hold all of the guts of the Balloon Project. There was a couple of things I was looking for in the design:
[*]I wanted it to be completely see through so I could provide a camera angle that would not only show the air sampler working but the entire panoramic world below.
[*]It needed to be strong enough to support itself and be able to handle any winds that might crop up.
[*]It had to look like the sexiest piece of equipment ever designed.

So I went to work designing on paper, then designing on the computer in my favorite program solidworks, and last but not least I created a full working prototype. It was a lot of work but I wouldn't call it the hardest part of the project. After making the initial prototype I took it to a fabricator and they re-crafted it with a level of skill that usurped mine by twenty fold.

I would like to thank Mr. Robert Washington and the American Plastic Corp for donating their technical know how when it comes to working with plastic. It's a pretty forgiving material but not if you are trying to make something look good.