[from the editor: Doug snuck from the Bridgeport to the window to send this as Morse code using sparks from the TIG welder]

OK folks, here it is, the update that you have been waiting for, wherein we report on the reality of parts actually being made and structures that are coming together. SO much stuff has coming on-line in the past week. Let me tell you about it…

KICKSTARTER

As you may well know, our Kickstarter was more than successful, we grossed $16.3K, which nets us about $11.5K after the fees and rewards are paid for. This lets us meet all of our initial goals AND our stretch goals. So a great big THANK YOU goes out to all of you who helped make this possible. We are gathering data from rewardees and are working on finding suppliers for all of our rewards.

TRANSPORT TRUCK

We now have a 24-foot long box truck that appears to be in pretty darn good shape within which we will transport all of our equipment, parts and gear to the Playa. We will have some extra space on the truck, so if you are getting out there early and want your gear to arrive with you, get in touch and we will sell you some space. In the coming week we will be having a diesel mechanic going over it, changing fluids and replacing/repairing the few small things that it needs and generally making sure that it is more than road-worthy for the trip.

WOOD WORK

Last Saturday Mark H, Chuck I, JfM & I headed out to Ashby, Massachusetts to start in on the carpentry for the wooden tower top.  There were six 8” x 10” x LONG beams that we turned into 7-3/4” x 10-foot long hexagonal columns, and all of the other 5-sided railing balusters and posts were made and all of the rafter truss components were cut to size and band-sawed to shape.

The week before, I cut out 8 of 11 of the sheets of plywood on the CNC router. This comprised the upper tower floor, the railings, half of the railing panels and 4 of the cupola sunshade end-caps.

During this past week, the floor decking was fabricated and assembled and the floor is all together now. The MONSTER columns have been chopped and mortised and had all of their final cuts made onto them. The balusters had their final sanding and all of the plywood parts had their edges cleaned up with a round-over bit on a hand router.

STEEL TOWER

For the steel tower, 5 of 7 of the rings were cut, ground, drilled and welded together. The components of the other two have been cut and ground.  Some of the more difficult cuts are pictured below:

All 24 of the mid-section flat bars have been twisted 70-degrees along their 12+-foot length via a contraption made up by Max E. that worked fantastically. They are now marked for drilling and that will be finished by tomorrow, then we can make our fist attempt at putting a section of the tower up and see what we get.

All of the flat connecting plates that will hold the bottom section of the tower together were finished and delivered to us by Tom W of Limerick Machine up in Maine and we have begun cleaning them up and welding them where they belong.

The last pieces that still need to be made have had their designs finalized and the material is here in the shop and they will be finished this week.

I-BEAM BASE

We have re-designed the base that sits on the Playa since our original plan of burying the base is no longer a viable Playa option. We re ran our wind-load and structural analysis on the widened tower and the new base and are happy with it. The new base will be made up of an I-beam hexagon that the tower will sit on and six, 10-foot long radial outriggers that will be staked into the Playa with up to 42, 30-inch long, 5/8” diameter steel stakes. Additional holding forces will be generated by up to 20, 6-inch diameter, 48-inch long screw-anchors that will be driven into the Playa and attached to mounting points on the tower base by turnbuckles.

SPARK CHAMBER

Our small test Spark Chamber is assembled as well as our power supplies, and the HV circuits are near completion of the testing phase. We expect to be running tests under power and within a gas-filled environment this week. Last week we received the 18” diameter, 21” tall glass cylinder that the Spark Chamber will reside in, as well as the scintillator plastic that will be the front end of the Muon coincidence detector. The PhotoMultiplier Tubes have been tested and oscillations in the power Supplies for them have been figured out. The thyratron power supply has been bread-boarded and is being tested out right now.

CLOTH SKIRT

The cloth skirt that will wrap the bottom third of the steel tower has been cut to rough size and primed with two coats of white and is ready to be finished upon completion of the lower section of the steel tower so it can be fitted to it exactly. Then we will fold over the edges, sew the seat belt edging to it and put in all of the edge grommets. After that there will be painting of the final design and much celebrating.

LIGHTING

As for our amazingly complicated lighting extravaganza, the hundreds of meters of LED strips have arrived. The lighting architecture has been nailed own and the connectors, power-supplies and other assorted bits are on order. The programming has begun and we have a simulation that you can view here:

Cosmic Praise lighting MIDI integration test from Dewb on Vimeo.

As soon as the center section of the tower is built, which should be by the middle of this coming week, we will be able to start installing the bulk of the LED strips and testing them and the control programs and associated wiring power supplies etc. A design for a mount for the LED strips has been designed and tested and it looks like it will work fine, so those will be fabricated this coming week as well.

The lighting on the wooden tower top will be able to begin to be installed by Monday. At this time as well, our final locations and mounts for such things as power supplies, vacuum pump, gas bottles, power and data distribution hubs, other assorted electronics and etc. can be finalized.

EARLY/LATE CREW

The early crew is pretty much filled out, but we are still looking to fill out the late crew for take-down and Leave-No-Trace (LNT) considerations. Sharon K has set up a sign-up sheet for volunteers for daily Matter-Out-Of-Place (MOOP) sweeps. Seeing as we are right in Center Camp, the potential for a MOOP disaster is pretty high. So, in order to not absolutely DESTROY the late crew we would like to make sure that we are keeping on top of this during the event itself.

On-Playa LNT Signup Sheet

Tonight Cosmic Praise will be live on air with Radio Ninja on WMBR interviewing the mad scientist himself: Doug Ruuska!

Tune in to 88.1fm at 10pm EST to learn more from the Artist in Chief about this crazy tower we are building… stick around for the sick beats of Radio Ninja! Available in the greater Boston area at 88.1fm or streaming online at WMBR.org anywhere the internet can be found.

First wave of Cosmic Praise pins have arrived!

In more  news, we are thrilled to be able to offer a truly eye-opening very limited Kickstarter Reward!

If you have Early Arrival on Playa for this 2014 year, you are eligible to reach out and snag one of the 6 spots available to partake in a Gates Opening Cheese & Grown-Up-Grape-Juice Reception. Our only on-Playa reward, for just a few Early Arrival citizens of Black Rock City BEFORE the gates open.

•  Join the artists atop the tower for an intimate 2-hour cheese and grown-up-grape-juice reception, which finally culminates in watching from above, as BRC gates open and the very first waves of arrivals enter the City. Recovering physicist Doug Ruuska will share his favorite fine cheeses; along with cheesy explanations of physics, or life in the Antarctic, or really any topic. Watch the City be populated from a 6 o’clock bird’s eye view, and also receive the sticker, pin and (p)leather fob! NOTE: Participants are responsible for ensuring your own Early Arrival status so that you may join us.

OK folks, here is an update for all of you who have been inquiring as to the status of the Cosmic Praise project. First off, thanks for you interest and patience, having the project located in the 6-o’clock keyhole has presented some challenges that have needed to be addressed and this has taken some time.

Our contract with Burning Man has been signed, sealed and delivered so we are even more officially ON than before. We, and all of the other Honorarium projects, and there are a bunch of amazing things there, are ll up on the BMan website :

 http://www.burningman.com/installations/art_honor.html

 Our early crew, all 18 of them, has been approved and we have an excellent team in place.

The tower was completely re-designed in SolidWorks by Nick L, whose CAD-Fu is significantly more advanced an sophisticated than mine. Jigs have been designed and made for cutting the angles in the tower support struts and cutting has been successful on samples. Requests for quote for the bulk of the steel went out today.. The metal shop that was going to roll the angle for us into hoops cannot do it, so we have the steel and have started cutting it so that we can weld them into 12-sided polygons instead. . Tom W. of Limerick Machine in Maine has generously offered to make a bunch of the flat plate tower components and we have sent them drawings and they are being made as you read this. All 280 or so parts will be delivered early next week and we shall begin the marathon welding sessions. Blake Hooch C. has redone the structural analysis to reflect the wider tower and we are still I good shape to elevate 10 or so hippies safely up into the sky.

High-Voltage electronics are pretty much finished, both the tube-based circuits and the solid-state analog backups. Prototype boards have been spun and tested and we are onto production versions. Most components have been sourced/purchased and a space has been cleared for to begin wiring up and testing at Artisan’s Asylum. The scintillator type and photomultipliers (PMTs) with matching photo-cathode spectral response have been selected and ordered. The PMTs have been tested and now that we have characterizes their output, we know how to tweak the pre-amplifier. We are gearing up to test the spark chamber as a simple 2-3 plate affair in a small bell jar in an Argon atmosphere. This has been mostly accomplished by Dan S, Bob R, Drew V, Olin S & Carl G.

Lower tower wrap/Deco. We have tested samples of fabric for wrapping the lower half of the tower and the materials chosen will work for us. Our source for the cloth did not materialize, no pun intended, so we will be picking up the cloth from a new source next week. Liz M has designed the patterns. The new tower dimensions have been nailed down, so the pattern for cutting, sewing and painting has been developed. As soon as we have the cloth we will begin sewing.

The first, few formal all-hands lighting team meetings have happened. There has been a lot of behind the scenes work and a lot of the components/strategy has been nailed down. Basic lighting components, scheme and procedures are in place and are being developed on a test bed. Thanks Dewb, Carl, Ben, Jacob, Adam, etc. The order for the mass quantity of lights, connectors, cables and power supplies goes out this week. We finalized the design for the clips to attach the LED strips to the steel structure of the tower.

The website is now on-line. Check it out at http://www.cosmicpraise.com. Add some testimonials, or let us know what you would like to see.

Threadable has proven useful as a way to keep the volunteer crew informed about what is goingon and the teams in communication with each other. We have 10 different groups at the moment and more will come on line as the project progresses.

Our fundraising efforts are centered on a Kickstarter campaign spearheaded by Madelaine R. with support from Riv, Sharon K, Melinda G, Emile D, Jessica S, et al. with video by Ronny P. The launch has so far been successful and we are 62% of the way to our funding goal.. Our crack graphics team has been busy coming up with interesting and beautiful designs that we intend to use for ‘branding’ or making the project recognizable. We are putting the finishing touches on some pretty cool rewards for folks who contribute to the project. We will have the usual, stickers, pint glasses, t-shirts, and some cool medallions and some larger things such as a table that is a version of the tower base and some lighting based on parts of the wooden tower top, and some surprises.

The wooden tower top/viewing platform has been expanded a bit in size to make it easier to climb up into and move around on. The attachment method to the tower has been finalized. A cut list and material order will be finalized over this coming weekend. The design for the ladder to climb up into the top platform is also nearing completion. All of the components that will be cut out on the CNC router have had their designs finalized and they have been toolpathed and are ready to cut.

After talks with Burning Man’s Art Support Services and other projects such as Bryan Tedrick’s Minaret, we are currently reviewing our base and method of attachment to the Playa and expect to have that design finished by July 1.

Start your social media engines to post to facebook, email it to your mother, tweet until your twitterpated, break out the cymbals and shout it from the rooftops, because the Cosmic Praise Kickstarter is LIVE!

Crowd funding relies on people (like you!) to help get the word out about this 50′ minaret of ours, while also enabling us to properly thank you for making big ART like this possible.  There truly is no limit to what we can accomplish with your help! Don’t forget to keep checking back on the Kickstarter page as well as here as we add updates, photos and videos of the project in progress and new backer rewards…

Fundraising ends in 30 days.

The Man burns in 79 days.

“It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.” -W.Shakespeare

“Faster! Pedal faster!”, I yelled at the stranger above me, as she madly peddled her bike and I dragged the ropes attached to her bike across the dust-swept playa surface. “If you pedal faster,  you’ll go faster!”. Ofcourse, that was patently false. The bike was suspended mid-air and her speed depended on how fast I and my fellow acolytes pulled the ropes, sweeping the bike through the sky. The whole contraption looked like a windmill on its side, with the bike dangling off the end of the would-be sail. And we dragged the sail round and round, the bike swooshing overhead. “Fly a bike” they called it. And I ran the contraption for five hours straight that day under the playa sun. Hundreds must have ridden it. One by one, eagerly clambering onto the bike, faces grinning in anticipation of what was to come. We dragged the counterweight down, and up the bike went! Soaring into the azure blue sky, silhouetted against the sun. “Pedal faster!” we yelled as the bike went round and round.

There was a certain satisfaction in that labor. In happiness delivered. Instant happiness. On the faces of strangers you saw for a fleeting moment and nevermore. As they were swooshed up onto the bike for their minute of playa perspective delivered. They got off, giddy and willing to pull the ropes and get the next person up. And the next. And the next. We flew that bike for hours. And that was how I met Doug and Doug’s art.

I learnt that there is something visceral about participative art. About art that draws the spectator in. That delivers an experience unlikely to be forgotten. As we hauled burners onto that bike over and over again, they experienced the joy of strangers exchanging happiness. It is part of what made me sign on to “Cosmic Praise”,  Doug’s art project for this year.

The value of art lies in the instant connection it forges with the viewer. Art has the power of communicating an idea instantly, clearly, and viscerally. And, what begs to be communicated today? What is beautiful yet complex, elegant yet obscure? Science! Science illuminates the structure of our world. The complex, differentiated structure. The whorls of a flower, the phases of the moon, or the motion of the tides. There is science behind them. And art can lend its voice to that science. Bring it to life. This is what “Cosmic Praise” does.

Think of the playa. A few square miles of salt plain. Zoom out. North America, a continent. Zoom out further. The Earth, the planets and the Sun. Just another star in a nondescript part of the Milky Way, which is just another spiral galaxy in a the Local Group of galaxies, itself part of the Virgo supercluster of galaxies. If you think about it, it’s funny, even absurd, that we live our quotidian lives seldom thinking of the magnificent cosmic dance that encompasses us. The universe abounds with all manner  of strange and exotic objects, from neutron stars to gas giants. If only their presence could be made real. Visceral. Visible to the naked eye.

We’re already there. Almost. Every day you, me, and everyone else is bombarded by the fingerprints of cosmic happenings. They’re called “cosmic rays”. Think the regurgitated byproducts of cosmic happenings and you have cosmic rays. Supernovae give off cosmic rays. Black holes give off cosmic rays. That cosmic ray that just passed you by? For all you know, it could’ve come from a supernova in Andromeda, a galaxy 2.5 million light years away. It’s been travelling for 2.5 million years to get to you. From a time before humans existed.  Too bad your eyes could never see the passage of a cosmic ray. If only you could, and then partake in the cosmic wonder of our universe.

And this is what “Cosmic Praise” is all about. A cosmic ray detector atop a 50 foot high tower. You, curious, intrepid  traveller to Black Rock City, mount the steps to this atrium perched atop the tower. You enter, and you see flashes of light. Each flash of light announces the  passage of a cosmic ray. And as you gaze at each flash, you feel the universe speaking to you. You look up at the inky-black night sky and think of all the supernovae, the black holes, the neutron stars, the quasars, the Suns and Earths of the universe that must be out there. You feel them. And suddenly, that feeling of transcendence rushes up at you. You’re part of something much larger. Much grander. The story of the cosmos. Cosmic Praise.

-Karan Gill

OK folks, here is an update for all of you who have been inquiring as to the status of the Cosmic Praise project. First off, thanks for you interest and patience, having the project located in the 6-o’clock keyhole has presented some challenges that have needed to be addressed and this has taken some time.

The biggest thing is that the smallest inner diameter of the tower, which was sufficient for one ladder up, is insufficient for 2 ladders up. We feel that the more highly-trafficed location, will come with more people attempting to climb up and down the tower. To make this easier, we have decided to put 2 ladders in, one for climbing up and the other for climbing down. This necessitated making the narrowest portion of the tower wider and led to a complete structural re-design, which has taken some time, but is now complete. We are generating the tower BOM and cut list even as I type this.  Thanks for the able CADding goes to Nick L. We have bought enough steel to prototype parts and determine fabrication methods and have cut some parts out on the CNC plasma cutter, thanks here go to Dewb.

High-Voltage electronics are pretty much designed, both the tube-based circuits and the solid-state analog backups. Most components have been sourced/purchased and a space has been cleared for to begin wiring up and testing at Artisan’s Asylum. The scintillator type and photomultipliers with matching photo-cathode spectral response have been selected and bought as well. We are gearing up to test the spark chamber as a simple 2-3 plate affair in a small bell jar in an Argon atmosphere. This has been mostly accomplished by Dan S, Bob R, Drew V, Olin S & Carl G. We also are engaging the advice of a new partner, a man who has been designing and building high-voltage and plasma discharge art for more than 30 years.

Lower tower wrap/Deco. We have tested samples of fabric for wrapping the lower half of the tower and the materials chosen will work for us. Liz M has been sketching up designs for the patterns and now that we have the new tower dimensions available, the cutting, sewing and painting will be started soon.

The first, formal all-hands lighting team meeting has happened. There has been a lot of behind the scenes work and a lot of the components/strategy has been nailed down. Basic lighting components, scheme and procedures are in place and are being developed on a test bed. Thanks Dewb.

Web development/social media work has been taken on by Emil and Riv and Sharon and they are putting the final touches on our WordPress website which should be coming on line this week. A LOT of thought and effort have gone into this and it should prove useful to anyone interested in the project. Check it out at http://www.cosmicpraise.com. Add some testimonials, or let us know what you would like to see.

Threadable was chosen as our mailing list source and so far it seems to be working fine. Although there were a few bumps at the start. We have 10 different groups at the moment and more will come on line as the project progresses. We are in the midst of getting our GrabCAD account setup and all of our CAD files put up there for easy access by the team.

Our fundraising efforts will center around a Kickstarter campaign spearheaded by Madelaine R. with video support from Ronny P. All of this is being finished up with an expected launch set for next week. Our crack graphics team has been busy coming up with interesting and beautiful designs that we intend to use for ‘branding’ or making the project recognizable. We are putting the finishing touches on some pretty cool rewards for folks who contribute to the project. We will have the usual, stickers, pint glasses, t-shirts, and some cool medallions all with designs made up by Riv, ehawk & Andrea H. In addition, there will be some larger things such as a table that is a version of the tower base and some lighting based on parts of the wooden tower top, as well as some surprises.

The wooden tower top/viewing platform has been expanded a bit in size to make it easier to climb up into and move around once up there. We have simplified the framing and will begin butchering wood in two weeks.

I look forward to sending you some more exciting updates in the coming weeks, along with opportunities for you all to help out. Things are starting to flow, just like the spice!

Cheers & Anticipation,

Doug

You’ll never run out of considerations when you set out to construct a multi-story tower-mounted particle physics imager in a desert three thousand miles away. While it doesn’t involve slag burns or vacuum tubes, sharing stories from the creation process helps people form a palpable connection with the work. We want to give people a taste of the madness involved in what will amount to the terrestrial equivalent of launching a satellite into space.

If you know Doug and live in the Boston area, there’s a good chance you could be conscripted into a half-day of drilling, grinding, de-burring, or any number of things that will give you hands-on memories of bringing Cosmic Praise to life.  I still have a scar from working on a certain rapid egress slide, and now I know how to properly use a de-burring tool. Barring mutilation, how can we best share the enormity of effort taking place? How can we show the journey from notebook to playa with the impact the task deserves? No really, how?

We’ve got a few renderings up of the tower for shape and scale, an engineering notebook full of secrets to redact, and stories from the front lines. The hum of potential energy is fierce and bites back. Raw material orders are coming in and novel fabrication techniques are being tested. There are multiple work tracks, some operating like semi-autonomous splinter cells so that structural work, illumination programming, facade deco, oh and yeah that whole spark chamber thing, can all come together for final fitting before being packed piece by piece into a truck so Doug, and faithful early crew, can drive it to a desert three thousand miles away.

I’m pretty excited.