Features RSS Feed
14 Comments
Original air date:
11.14.07
Float Around your Backyard on your very own UFO
Have you ever wanted to build your own UFO? It's a surefire way to freak out your neighbors, who would spill out of their homes in droves to either marvel at the spectacle, or stare at you and shake their heads disapprovingly—it's hard to predict. Either way, you're bound to have some fun with this week's GeekDad project. Watch our very own GeekDad Dylan Tweney as he and his daughter Clara build themselves a UFO.
The best part is, you get to play the alien.
INSTRUCTIONS
If you decide to build a UFO yourself, you'll need: eye protection, a half sheet of plywood, a black marker, a jigsaw, a sander, a piece of tarp larger than the plywood, a stapler, string, duct tape, a circular container lid about six inches in diameter, a smaller round object to use for tracing, scissors, and some screws.
Follow the simple steps below or click HERE for instructions from I-Hacked.com:
1. Use a marker to draw two diagonal lines spanning the sheet from each corner—where they meet marks an X in the center.
2. Drill a tiny hole in the center of the board and insert a screw. Attach one end of a long piece of string to the screw and the other end to your marker, and, using the string as its radius, draw a complete circle inscribed in the plywood.
3. Put on your safety goggles.
4. Use a jigsaw to cut out the inscribed circle.
5. Run a sander around the edges of the circle to smooth them.
6. Grab the nearest leaf blower and trace its circular opening onto your circle, somewhere about halfway between the center of the circle and the edge.
7. Cut a small hole in the wood that will accommodate the jigsaw blade, then cut out the circular shape you just traced using your jigsaw.
8. Cut a piece of tarp into a circle about six to eight inches larger in diameter than the plywood circle.
9. Center the plywood circle on top of the circular tarp and pull the tarp edges over on top of the plywood. Leaving a few inches of slack so that a cushion is created when the leaf blower fills the tarp with air, staple the tarp to the wood.
10. Duct tape the tarp's edges so air can't leak out.
11. Turn the wood over and screw an upside-down plastic circular lid—say, from a container of yogurt—down in the center of the wood to act as a washer.
12. Cut out six circles in the tarp (but not the wood), a few inches in diameter, around this center washer.
13. Insert the leaf blower into the hole in the wood. Sit down on your UFO—tarp side down— and turn on the blower.
14. "Fly" around on the ground in your new UFO and make your neighbors gawk.
14 Posts
+ Add Comment
11.14.07 2:44 PM PST
pigface
If you decide to build a UFO yourself, you'll need: eye protection, a half sheet of plywood, a black marker, a jigsaw, a sander, a piece of tarp larger than the plywood, a stapler, string, duct tape, a circular container lid about six inches in diameter, a smaller round object to use for tracing, scissors, and some screws.
Nowhere does it say I NEED A LEAF BLOWER!!!
11.14.07 5:45 PM PST
captain obvious
Most people figure that out for themselves before they build the rest.
11.14.07 5:45 PM PST
ryan
WHERE R THE PICTURES?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
11.14.07 5:46 PM PST
Ryan
pictures would help a lot plz
11.14.07 6:00 PM PST
Googles Pisano
I thought that was a really neat thing to show people. Now,will the same structure work with 6 blowers, with 3 having port trajectory alteration capability (jet wash directional control like a harrier to control 3 axis of directional control?)In short, can we Nascar this buggy with a standard H pattern shifter, Variac, and nozzle control for racing? Remember winter is coming and some of us dont own snowmobiles but we do own snow blowers and will need some racing to hold us over until daytona!
11.14.07 6:16 PM PST
genius
"Why didn't you use two leaf blowers for more upward thrust?"
11.14.07 6:34 PM PST
genius
"Why didn't you use two leaf blowers instead of one and why didn't you use one to thrust the hovercraft forward?"
11.14.07 6:52 PM PST
brandon
the pictures are with the how to video
11.14.07 8:44 PM PST
Frederick Paul Hippmann
Earlier I asked about finding portion on home-made UFO. Well, I found it. Also asked about purchasing instructions, in print form, hoping that that would not skimp on details, like thickness of plywood (thickness adds weight), and power of leaf blower*, because it is hard to believe that any of them create enough thrust to lift UFO plus payload/pilot.
* can leaf blower be electric, or gasoline-powered?
Does Wired Science have other home-built projects, for kids and adults?
11.14.07 9:34 PM PST
Frederick Paul Hippmann
General Comment: I'm excited to have come upon Wired Science.
It must have been the TV scheduling that had me miss it.
Can viewers/readers get questions answered? Like how to choose (not too expensive) digital camcorder, that has excellent freeze frame feature, w/o blur and distortion, to allow to print or store individual images, from still or moving subject, for a 'poor man's microfiche'. Camcorder, rather than still camera, or still mode, because there is so much to be recorded, (and it is thought that camcorder will do it faster), for archival-type keepsakes, of letters, articles, graphics, photos, regular moving video recording---all to be readable on monitor first, to help select what's to be printed/stored, as individual stills, when requested.
11.18.07 4:12 AM PST
Karl
Saw the segment on PBS, and it was awesome. First thing I thought of was, if I use a gas blower my kids will have the coolest sled in the neighborhood this winter. Hmmm, I wonder if a second blower will have enough thrust to get them back up the hill( by them I mean me ).
Thanks for the show.
11.18.07 4:14 AM PST
Scottie Pringle
just a reminder if yoy do NASCAR it up, hovercraft still require a VERY wide space in which to execute a "turn"... enjoy ! cheers !...
11.18.07 5:21 PM PST
Danny
This sounds like a great Cub Scout project.
11.29.07 9:08 AM PST
Mark
I'll be building this with my Cub Scout den at our next meeting. Last night we did toy hovercraft. Take a CD and glue a pop up lid from a water bottle over the center hole. Then blow up a balloon and put it over the spout. viola! you have a mini hovercraft. Next meeting we'll be building one of the leaf blower versions.
Post your comment