Bass Versus Burn

Students Viet Tran (L) and Seth Robertson with their invention, a sound extinguisher, at the Fairfax Campus. Photo by Alexis Glenn/Creative Services/George Mason University

Students Viet Tran (L) and Seth Robertson with their invention, a sound extinguisher, at the Fairfax Campus. Photo by Alexis Glenn/Creative Services/George Mason University

Two students at George Mason University have come up with a remarkable invention, which could be a game-changer in the eternal war of hippies vs ravers. You want us to turn the music off? Well maybe we’ll just turn your fire off!

From factmag:

By blasting a fire with low frequencies between 30 and 60 hertz range, the extinguisher separates oxygen from fuel, explains inventor Viet Tran, who built the device with fellow student Seth Robertson. “The pressure wave is going back and forth, and that agitates where the air is. That specific space is enough to keep the fire from reigniting.”

The pair faced plenty of opposition to their project initially because they’re electrical engineers, not chemical – several faculty members refused to act as advisers on the project. Eventually their professor Brian Mark agreed to oversee their work and not fail them if the whole thing flopped, said Tran.

Some further details from the Washington Post:

They weren’t at all sure that it would work

“I honestly didn’t think it would work as well as it did,” Tran said.

And neither did their professor

“My initial impression was that it wouldn’t work,” Mark, their adviser, said. “Some students take the safe path, but Viet and Seth took the higher-risk option.”

They MacGyver’d it

Image: Evan Cantwell/GMU

Image: Evan Cantwell/GMU

the goal was to create something portable and affordable like a fire extinguisher that would generate the sound wave at the correct frequency, which they were able to do with the help of an oscilloscope that measured the waves. They connected their frequency generator to a small amplifier and linked the amplifier to a small electric power source. These are hooked up to a collimator that they made out of a large cardboard tube with a hole at the end, which narrows the sound waves to a smaller area.

They tried ultra-high frequencies, such as 20,000 or 30,000 hertz, and could see the flames vibrating but not going out. They took it down low, and at the range of 30 to 60 hertz, the fires began to extinguish…the trial-and-error began. They placed flaming rubbing alcohol next to a large subwoofer and found that it wasn’t necessarily all about that bass, musically speaking, at least. “Music isn’t really good,” Robertson said, “because it doesn’t stay consistent.”

The next level of testing will determine if it can put out large structure fires.

So how does it work?

The basic concept, Tran said, is that sound waves are also “pressure waves, and they displace some of the oxygen” as they travel through the air. Oxygen, we all recall from high school chemistry, fuels fire. At a certain frequency, the sound waves “separate the oxygen [in the fire] from the fuel. The pressure wave is going back and forth, and that agitates where the air is. That specific space is enough to keep the fire from reigniting.”

Like the Internet and SIRI, the technology is straight out of the Pentagon’s secret research division.

In 2012, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency conducted a project on “acoustic suppression of flame” and found that it worked on small levels but could not determine if it would work at “the levels required for defense applications,” the agency said.

One of the students works for the Defense Department…coincidence?

Robertson has been working at the Defense Department and has been offered a job with the Air Force. Tran has interned at a Dulles, Va.-area aerospace firm with a promise of a job after graduation.

This could be a great solution for fire-fighting in dry areas, like Nevada, drought-stricken California, or the new frontier of space:

Although the students originally envisioned their device as a tool to attack kitchen fires and to eliminate the toxic monoammonium phosphate used in commercial fire extinguishers, they can see more uses: in confined areas in space, or wide areas outdoors, such as forest fires. Not having to use water or foam would be a bonus in many situations.

Read the full story at the Washington Post.

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Fire truck of the future?

 

 

The Digital Renaissance Faire: A New Burner Event Gets Off the Ground

by Whatsblem the Pro

DRF Logo by Corey 'Endeavor' Rosen

DRF Logo by Corey ‘Endeavor’ Rosen

The first annual Digital Renaissance Faire is coming up at the end of May in South Lake Tahoe, Nevada. It isn’t particularly digital, and it’s not a Renaissance Faire; Corey ‘Endeavor’ Rosen‘s brainchild is, in Rosen’s own words, “a B.Y.O.E. (Bring Your Own Everything) community-based educational collaborative art festival practicing decommodification and sacred economy within a festival community environment.”

In other words, it’s a big burner party!

The DRF will be taking place near South Lake Tahoe from May 23rd to the 27th, with some familiar names among the theme camp participants that will be attending; Barbie Death Camp, for instance, will be hosting one of the distinct ‘villages’ at the event (Air Village), with Digital Apex providing sound.

Corey 'Endeavor' Rosen - Photo by Yobi Bear

Corey ‘Endeavor’ Rosen – Photo by Yobi Bear

“We’ll also have InpsydouT and their incredible black-light art gallery,” Rosen reports, “and the Financial Liberation Institute will be hosting a village workshop space. Remixed Ink will be bringing a screen-printing SWAG theme camp. MAP (Music, Art, Poetry) is presenting a live music and performance theme camp. . . and the YUM Truck will be cooking up some amazing food for us to sample on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.”

Sacred Spaces will be hosting Earth Village, with the Hookahdome as their village sound camp. EVOLVER will furnish some workshop space, and don’t miss Healing Sensations massage healing theme camp, even if you feel fine. SoulShine will balance your chakras with aromatherapy using scented candles, oils, soaps, and elixirs, which sounds like a pleasantly smellful time even if you’re ungroovy and don’t believe in chakras or care if they’re unbalanced.

FluxFire will be rapidly combining things with oxygen in order to threaten and enliven your very existence on this planet in Fire Village at the Digital Renaissance Faire, with soundtrack courtesy of The Othership. The folks from Leafy Green Gallery will be on hand with a sculpture gallery featuring live welding and glass-blowing demonstrations. Rainbow Heart will run a village workshop space while the Sensuality Salon will be hosting an activity theme camp designed to “connect your heart to your senses,” which is probably not as painful as it sounds. Our esteemed colleagues from Burn After Reading Magazine and Raised By Wolves will caffeinate you ’til you’re sore at their coffee bar, while PyroClastic Flow spins fire art.

Camp Happy Hour will host Water Village with a bar and art gallery, and sonic assistance from Sustainable Bass Collective. The Inversion Playground and outdoor workshop space will be available for your use courtesy of a coven of hawt adrenaline princesses known as the Tahoe Ciello Aerialists. There will be a photo booth run by Unique Exposures, and you might just find some stylin’ new (to you) duds at the Clothing Exchange.

The four traditional elements being insufficient for modern needs, there will also be an Aether Village, where the DRF Spirit Guides will man (or woman) an Information Booth, Ice Sales, and the Spirit Stage, a 24-hour open mic stage where YOU can be the star (or possibly jackass)! Rainbow Ranch will present a village workshop space, and Sk8&Create will welcome you into (out to?) their outdoor art gallery and mini skate park. 9Energies will be there, too, to determine which of the nine energies is your superpower.

The Auburn chapter of the Hip-Hop Congress is running the show in Youth Village, with ZeroDB‘s Silent Disco, and the Illumination Dissemination Theater, a movie theater providing educational documentaries and forward-thinking programs all weekend long.

It all promises to add up to an interesting event. Weather allowing, it should be a good time for everyone.

Even Cookie Monster. Photo by Tim Eliseo

Even Cookie Monster. Photo by Tim Eliseo

For More Information:

DRF Hotline: 916-WIRE-DRF
Event Website: www.digitalrenfaire.org
Ticket Page: www.pccn.ticketbud.com/digitalrenfaire
Facebook Community Page: www.facebook.com/digitalrenfaire
Facebook Event Page: www.facebook.com/events/530324116983560/