Tag Archive for 'air lift'

The Fabulous Story of the Jackpot!

jackson published on August 15, 2009 in build, food, superforest journal, technology and zeitgeist. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

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Gooooooood Morning SuperForest!

I realized yesterday that I’d never done a video explaining the Jackpot, what it is, and how it works.
So here we go!

The Jackpot is a super-cheap, DIY, hydroponic, indoor garden.

For the full story of the Jackpot, read the following:

Here’s the first post about the Jackpot: Jackson’s Journal (5/14/09) – Hydrodynamics Can Be Vexatious. Here I outline the basic design of the device, and the three main components: the air lift/drip system, the reservoir, and the air pump.

Next, I worked to get the air lift working. Warning: In this video I am pretty tired and keep repeating the word “so”: Jackson’s Journal (5/16/09) – Drinking Straw Water Air Lift Success!
The air lift is a simple device for lifting water. Is is a tube that you pump air into. Submerge the tube in a column of water and the air bubbles will lift the water a good height. That means for very little energy you can move something very heavy straight up, which perfect for drip irrigation. And drip irrigation is perfect for the home gardening enthusiast.

Here’s a quick video of the Jackpot’s bones in action: Jackpot’s Bones

Then the esteemed SuperForester Spoon came to visit me in NY, and his visit totally inspired me to get the prototype done as quickly as possible. So James Michael Spoonhour went out one night to watch a sports thing, and I stayed home to finish the Jackpot, which I did, at like 2:30 AM: The Jackpot: It’s Alive!

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The next day I did a recap of the previous nights build session, with some making-of photos:  Jackson’s Journal (5/25/09) – Aloha, Mr. Spoonhour! Aloha, Mr. Jackpot!

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SuperForester Spoon left and SuperForester Julius arrived a few days later. Later that week, Julius and I walked the Jackpot over to Eyebeam gallery in Chelsea to show it to Britta and Rebecca from Windowfarms. This was karmically appropriate for a number of reasons, including the fact that the Jackpot had been inspired by an exhibit I’d seen at Eyebeam in 2007 called drinkpee, which Britta and Rebecca had created. Here’s Julius’ wonderful post: Working On Window Farms – The Movie

Helping Out The Window Farmers @Eyebeam from SuperForest on Vimeo.

Man, wasn’t that fun, Julius and James Michael? I had so much fun. Creative collaborating is the best.

Then things got really sexy when I gave a demo at Eyebeam to the Windowfarmers group! Britta and Rebecca then came out with their own amazing version of the Jackpot! Once again the idea improves and can be built upon.

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It all began with a fever dream and it ended in a massive idea-sharing group win.

Man, I love the internet and I’m so grateful for this existence.
Thank you to Spoon, Julius, Rebecca, and Britta for all your help and support.

All my best to each and everyone.

-Jackson

Jackson’s Journal (5/16/09) – Drinking Straw Water Air Lift Success!

jackson published on May 16, 2009 in build, technology and zeitgeist. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , .

picture-21(image via flickr user Bench artwork)

Hip Hop hooray, SuperForest!

Over the past few days I’ve learned a lot about what water will and won’t do when you pump air through it. In trying to get the Jackpot up and running, I’ve been experimenting with sending a stream of bubbles up through a variety of diameter and length pvc pipes.

But nothing was working. The water would bubble around inside the pipes, but it wouldn’t flow to the top. There were a variety of factors that I was trouble-shooting: pipe-diameter, was the upflow pipe to wide, not wide enough? Too many bubbles? Too few bubbles? Too much air? Not enough?

I was trying everything and nothing was working.

Last night at around midnight, I took Baloo for a walk and had a flash of inspiration. There in the street lay a nice wide-mouthed drinking straw. I quickly gathered a handful of straws from the street, shuffled back up to my apartment and made an extremely simple version of the air lift.

I simply jammed one straw inside another until I had a decent length of “pipe” then I snipped a wee hole in the side of the bottom straw to allow air in, then hot-glued an air adapter in place. The whole set up took less than ten minutes. And you know what?…

It totally works!

Drinking Straw Water Air Lift from SuperForest on Vimeo.

Raising a column of water from a standing position to 31 and a half inches higher using only an air pump! Rad! So the Multiple Air Lift design will totally work, it’s just not even necessary! With a pipe thin enough in diameter and a better thought out air coupling, I’m confident that the water can be raised at least 40 inches, which is more than enough for our purposes. This makes everything much simpler.

Drinking straws! Is there anything they cannot do?

Learning is fun!