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| Anoraks
Scrapheap Diary |
| "Flame
Flingers" |
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| Having had to miss one round I was glad
to get back to the heap, this time I knew the routine so I was ready for
the early starts and long days. Our challenge was to throw a steel ball
the size of a football filled with solid rocket fuel at a target up to 40
meters away and set fire to it! |
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|
Team
Anorak with Andy in the background |
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| With previous events we had had some experience
of what we were building, in this case it was all new to us, so when our
expert Paul suggested the design we were happy to go with it, it made sense,
we could see the logic behind it. The key to our success would be the trigger,
that we would leave to Paul. We would concentrate on building the rest of
the machine. Our machine was based on a old London Taxi, on the hottest
day of the year we had to get the thing off the heap, it was buried right
at the back so we needed special permission for myself and Paul to help
get it back to the build area. It must have taken a couple of hours but
we got it back, and the good news was Marc drove it so we knew all was okay
with the mechanicals, a big load off our minds! |
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|
The
rear of the cab chopped off |
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| Marc and Lyndon did a stunning job scavenging
so by lunchtime we had all we needed, Paul started on the trigger while
the three of us started on the Taxi. First to go was the rear section of
the bodywork. We then had to raise the rear axle to give enough clearance
for the throwing arm, this was done in two stages, first we cut out sections
of the rear suspension and folded the shackles back on themselves and welded
them solid, this enabled us to keep the original geometry of the axle, important
as we needed to retain the balance, the G forces at the end of the throwing
arm would be huge! This done Marc and Lyndon found a old lorry ramp so this
was adapted to go under the rear axle for both extra lift and support. |
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Locking
the suspension and fixing the support |
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| At
the front I cut off the hubs from the rear of a Fiat 127, these I welded
to a bit of box and mounted in place of the front bumper of the Taxi to
create the pivot wheels. A bottle jack was used at the rear so we could
raise the back, all we need to do was push the front round and we had movement
for aiming! |
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Formulating
a cunning plan. |
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| We
were now ready to mount the arm and trigger Paul had made to the rear axle,
this is when disaster struck, Paul had spent all day on it and he had made
it all back to front!! All was not lost, with some help from Marc a bit
of extra modification and some grinding and we were soon back on track. |
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Do
the cameras ever get in the way ? |
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| By
the end of the build we were all set, all we needed to do in tinkering time
was paint it and fit some protection for the rear, good job we did to! |
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| The
Test |
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After
tinkering time we watched the “Up’N’Atoms” go first, their first shot
hit the target straight in the middle, to say we were worried was a understatement!
We knew our first shots would be for sighting and getting the trajectory
sorted. The “Up’N’Atoms” managed to get as far as aiming for the 40mtr
target but didn’t get that close to actually hitting it. |
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The art dept are very clever, this is made from cardboard ! |
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| Our
first shot was a misfire, seems the hook that held the ball was a bit tight
so it released to late and hit the rear protection plate (and put a big
dent in the 10mm steel!) and bounced forward. |
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Our
ball takes flight. |
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| The second shot we found a better hook,
this time the shot was perfect, right in the middle of the target and it
hit so hard it smashed the wood behind the petrol soaked boxes! |
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Getting
the first target ! |
400KB Video |
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| Our third shot was to the 20mtr target,
another misfire, the trigger never released so it just went round and round,
the fouth shot was again perfect, the ball bounced just before the target
and hit it right in the middle! |
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Quite
spectacular ! |
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| The fith shot was to the 30mtr target,
we adjusted the trajectory and crossed our fingers, perfect first time!! |
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| The Sixth ball was for the 40mtr target,
we needed this to win, and the ball came out fell short and ran along the
ground, it stopped about a meter from the target!! |
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The Hail of Fire |
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| This is were we made our big mistake,
we adjusted the trajectory again, but went to far, shot 7 was another miss
fire the ball landed on the fuel tank of the Taxi, Paul was quick to react
and put the fire out! |
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And
the winner is…. |
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| Shot 8 our last one, came out perfect
but was far too high we had adjusted the trajectory to far! It bounced and
fell short, still we had got closer so we were threw to the finals!! |
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