A scientific experience with the flight of MUSEO AERO SOLAR

written by Saverio Tozzi, Centro di Scienze Naturali, Comune di Prato

download the Italian version

I have been invited to follow an experience of MUSEO AERO SOLAR, held in Carmignano, Parco Quinto Martini, on Sunday October 4^th 2009.
The following principles allow for the museo’s flight: first of all Archimedes’ law, dating back to the 3^rd century b.C., whose simplest assertion states that “a body in a fluid is lifted upwards proportionally to the weight of the fluid it displaces”. Widely known for its application to liquids, the principle nonetheless holds of all fluids, including air. It is actually the weight difference between the warm mass of air within the balloon and the mass of external, colder and hence heavier air, that allows its upwards lift and accounts for the possibility of lifting the wrapping alongside whatever it is hanging from it. In conventional hot air balloons, warmed by a gas heater, internal air temperature reaches around 120 °C: but how warm will it get through sunshine alone? And how can the density difference between internal and external air be measured?

Weather report

We started a collaboration with a meteorologist, Saverio Tozzi an environmental engineer working at  Centro di Scienze Naturali di Galceti, Prato.

During the last flight in Seano we measured:
- wind
- air temperature inside/outside the balloon
- temperature on the balloon surface (according to the shoppers’ colour)

Soon we will publish graphs and visualisations of the data we collected.

Montemurlo / Carmignano / Galceti

Best flight ever on Sunday October 4th at Seano park !

8.9.2009

Dear friends,
today in Frankfurt at  Alter flughafen – Aeronauten
…..watch up,  next we will launch it … from  Italy, Toscana, Prato

tomas

museo aero solar next landing soon

太阳能航空博物馆

Museo aero solar sta per arrivare nella provincia di Prato, precisamente a Carmignano e Montemurlo (27 settembre-3 ottobre)

Potete d’ora in poi seguire giorno per giorno le novità su questo blog.

Follow here day-by-day updates about next museo aero solar landing (Prato, Italy, september 27th – october, 3rd)

You can join the team, write also to aerosolar@gmail.com for more informations.

small news

The blog had some graphic problems in the last days, we apologize but now we solved them. You can now take a look to the new contents and the new pages we added recently.

museo aero solar

In another way, at the same time, in a different place…

欢迎访问新华网 – WWW.XINHUANET.COM
>>
Gaza children seek Guinness record in kite flying GAZA, July 30 (Xinhua) — Palestinian children in the besieged Gaza Strip on Thursday tried to break the world record by flying self-made kites simultaneously. Zuhir Haneya, an official who oversaw the event, said up to 6,000 children participated and that more than half of them succeeded in flying their kites. “Seventeen kids from every 20 children succeeded in flying their kites at the same time,” he said. The current record of kite flown simultaneously is 713, registered last year in Germany. “This means we have broken the record,” Haneya said. The children, who participate in annual summer camps sponsored by the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), hope to break up the Israeli blockade on their territory. John Ging, director of UNRWA operations, said “We have to break the harsh siege by making the world record in flying the kites.” He added that the UNRWA will stage more activities among Gaza children against the blockade. Israel imposed a near-total closure on Gaza when the Islamic Hamas movement seized power there in June 2007. No official or judge from the Guinness Book of World Records was sent to Gaza to oversee the “most kites flown simultaneously” attempt due to travel restrictions into Gaza, said a well-informed source. The colorful kites flew with slogans calling for the lift of the blockade. Shadi Abu Kmail, 13, who wrote “I want to live” on his kite, said, “I have come here to let the world hear us and work to lift the siege.”

MUSEO AERO SOLAR AT AEROnauten! ( July, 29th – August, 3rd )

Hello everybody, after a few months we are back, and these days museo aero solar is working and camping at the Alter Flughafen in Kalbach/Bonames (nearby Frankfurt, Germany).

(Read below how to reach the place)

We are proud to be hosted by Till Hergenhahn and Aeronauten werkstatt, whose activities are an inspiring way towards a technical and practical education for everybody. Museo aero solar, the first flying museum, is a solar balloon made in different countries collecting reused plastic bags, taped together to build a flying object that challenges the laws of the air. An open, do-it-together research, discussion and workshop group…just come and join us!

All these days, between July, 29th to August, 3rd it will be an open place to people who wants to experiment with any kind of solar balloons and many other flying objects. Several people from museo aero solar group is arriving from all over Europe to the Aeronauten site at the old airport near Kalbach, to join the local groups that worked during the last months to realize a new piece for the museo aero solar. On sunday, august, 2nd, from 11am until early evening, it will be possible to see the museo aero solar balloon and visit the inside, add more reused plastic bags to the structure and learn how to build a solar balloon in a cooperative way.

PROGRAM>

july, 31st / August, 1st >  afternoon > open workshops > balloons, rockets, building and repairing museo aero solar

Sunday, august 2nd, 11am/5pm >  adding reused plastic bags, visit the inside of museo aero solar inflated (15pm), workshops.

Monday, august 3rd > early morning  (around 6am/8am) inflating and launching museo aero solar (only with good weather).

german>

Luftschifftag

Das “Museo Aero Solar” zu Gast bei den Aeronauten

Bringt alle eure alten Plastiktüten mit!!!

Ab 11:00 Uhr kann jeder mit Hilfe der Aeronauten aus den mitgebrachten Plastiktüten eine Fläche gestalten. Diese werden nach und nach zu größeren Flächen zusammengestellt. Einzelne Flächen können auch schon im Vorfeld gebaut und mitgebracht werden. Anschließend werden diese an das bestehende museo aero solar angesetzt und bis 15:00 Uhr die letzten Löcher geflickt. Ab 15:00 Uhr werden wir den Ballon aufblasen. Durch einen Zugang ist es möglich in unseren Ballon hinein zu gehen und in zu bewundern.

Die Aeronauten-Werkstatt ist ein Projekt des
Umwelt-Exploratoriums e.V..

Projektverantwortlich:
Till Hergenhahn, Soeren Neuperti
mail: info@aeronauten.org
home: www.aeronauten.org

Umwelt-Exploratorium e.V.,
Vereinsitz: Frankfurt am Main
Geschäftsstelle:
Bettinastraße 19
63067 Offenbach am Main
T. 069. 48 00 65 68
mail: info@u-x.de
home: www.u-x.de

HOW TO REACH THE PLACE FROM FRANKFURT>

From the main train station (frankfurt hauptbahnhof), you’ll need to take any “S-Train”
going to the stop called “hauptwache”. it is only two stops away.
From hauptwache, take the “U-train” (underground) U2, direction “bad homburg/gonzenheim”
Your stop is called “kalbach” (takes about 20 minutes to get there).
At kalbach, exit the platform and walk in the opposite direction of the train.
I’s about a five minutes walk to the aeronauten werkstatt (see the map below)

FAREWELL(?) MINNEAPOLIS…

We left Minneapolis after a last, very intense week of work and experiments with the prototype of museo aero solar. We’ll publish soon all the details about. Sorry for not updating this blog, but we had to run every day to be able to launch the new solar balloon. For the moment, we would like to thank all the people and friends that have been part of the team there. It was unique.

TODAY, 10/9 MINNEAPOLIS

2 PM   1250 Hennepin Avenue (storefront)

building a solar balloon prototype to test the GPS/APRS radio devices.

(Tomorrow: 10 AM Blake school Gym )