[dorkbottac-blabber] UrbanXchange fashion show/benefit needs techideas!

[Laura MacCary]

Andrew said:

> So this is interesting. If Laura is looking for low budget, high
> impact it could be done for $80 + a person running the blimp hooked up
> to the projector.

Actually, it's Julie at UrbanXchange who's looking for help on this, I'm
just passing it along. Her email is urbanxchange at comcast.net and her site is
www.myspace.com/tacomaindiefashon. I don't know what her budget is, but $80
sounds pretty cheap!

> I get excited at the idea of a behavior based autonomous blimp with
> obstacle avoidance logic and surveillance capabilities. I know where
> to start with the software but where to start with the hardware.

This sounds cool. Here are some folks (I know of) who have done stuff
similar enough that you could probably pick their brains (or their sites):

Ryan Weh ryanweh at gmail.com & Brad Larsen blarsenb at seanet.com are the ones
who presented their controllable blimp at the April meeting. Their whole kit
weighs less than a pound!

Bre Pettis writes for Makeblog & has been working on an impressive
high-altitude imaging balloon. I don't think it's controllable, though?:
http://www.imakethings.com/2007/04/08/ahab-update/
He would have info on who to talk to about it, though-he has written about
everybody, it seems.

Fete Mobile is a project out of Vancouver BC, theirs is a big controllable
blimp which can automatically follow movement:
www.fetemobile.ca
I saw it at ISEA San Jose last year, and it was cool.

Laura