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About the video:

Here’s a little bit of night flight with my new Skyaak Model 3 with the light kit. Flight is great, but more than that, this thing looks great at night and was surprisingly easy to catch (especially for people that had never thrown a Skyaak before). Distributed by Tubemogul.

Living in rural Western Canada has its pros and cons. Mostly pros.

I used to think that I was pretty far removed from the action of the great big world living here, but since the world is steadily shrinking thanks to communication and information-sharing advances this is really no longer an issue.

A case in point would be the above video that shows the Skyaak Model 3 Ultra-Glow flying around over Berkeley Campus! Now if that’s not getting out there into the slipstream, I don’t know what is.

The great thing about living here is that I get to pretty much do what I want most days.

As a professional artist/entrepreneur I am enjoying a life ‘off the grid’, meaning I get to spend time devoted to the things I feel passionate about. Sure, I have to do the daily grind to earn the money I need to pursue my interests, just like everybody else. But I also get to spend substantial chunks of time dedicated to ‘following my muse’.

Which is pretty wrapped up in the Skyaak project.

When pressed to come up with a number one reason for spending all this time and energy on the Skyaak project I say this: I get a great big buzz out of creating an object that I can toss into the air and watch as it takes on a life of its own in flight!

There’s something in my lizard brain that gets a wicked rush from the idea that I am in the process of developing a flight methodology, a design configuration that actually works. There is a visceral thrill to the notion that I have nurtured this concept over the years from its crude infancy to the rather advanced form that you see flying around over Berkeley Campus above!

More than this, I’m looking forward to all of the future advancements yet to come. I have lots of ideas in the wings for more sophisticated models that will keep me busy for years to come.

With all the amazing advances in materials, replication technology and IT, I feel like I have access to a steadily expanding tool-box that will never exhaust itself of creative potential.

What more can I ask for?

Copyright Tony Karp 2008

From the Google Christmas Art series 08

Here’s today’s Google ‘Maker’ art. Looks like things are heating up, you can see that they are getting some steam happening. Whatever it is they are making, it appears to be working!

Speaking of ‘making’, you can make your own Skyaak DIY deuce…the cool ring-wing glider that you can download, laminate, custom-decorate, cut out, build and FLY for two bucks.

A buddy of mine popped over yesterday and I showed him the Model 3 and the DIY deuce. He told me that he is hard-core Frisbee enthusiast. At first he was a bit skeptical about the Skyaak design. It IS a rather unlikely-looking glider! Like nothing you’ve ever seen!

However, once we had tossed the deuce around the living-room a few times, his face lit up like a Christmas tree. He told me that it flies surprisingly well, and he pointed out that the ‘finger flicker’ does exactly the same thing as a ‘throwing stick’ or ‘atlatl’; that is, it creates unexpected extra power with little or no exertion!

He also enthused about the fact that the deuce tends to lift its nose up by the time it reaches the recipient, making it (conveniently) easy to grab out of the air by the shaft! Yeah, that is definitely a bonus feature that you will notice and enjoy!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shSyu9yi-9w]

You can clearly see in this brief clip how the DIY deuce lifts up its nose when it’s gliding through the air. This is the ‘positive incidence’ that we talked about earlier. Just means that the design of the ring-wings create ‘lift’ as it propels forward. Basically, the more thrust you have, the greater the lift. The ‘finger flicker’ (read: atlatl) feature is your ticket to a lot more airborne power.

I see that Google has posted a fresh image today:

Another nice Christmas 'Maker' image from Google

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3zX-B9-uyg]

Skyaak Maker Dylan Cooke shows how a translucent sphere, that will eventually end up inside the sealed shaft of a Skyaak Ultra-Glow unit sucks up and diffuses LED light.

I am posting it as a very warm compliment to Google. They have extremely good taste in this instance. I love the image of  a maker intent on his task of creating strange shapes and widgets at his work station.

Very very cool!

Obviously a billion or so sets of eyes have already seen this enchanting artwork.  Wish I knew who the artist is.

Oh Gooooogle…

Who is it by?!

I am going to blow it up a lot bigger and look around for a sig.

(-nal?,- nature?,-nificance?-)

In the same light, Skyaak developer Dylan Cooke zooms in on an  ‘Ultra-Glow’ LED hack that he created.

The third hand makes the delicate and precise work possible.

We can’t go into the proprietary details other than to say that there are many steps and it is quite the process to fabricate the complete LED array hack that includes front LED facing to the rear of the unit through the clear shaft, with a second LED at the rear that faces forward inside the shaft.

Dylan worked out all of the electronic engineering to accomplish a glowing shaft that makes it feasible to throw the unit back and forth over a distance of thirty to forty feet in the pitch black. With almost 100% completed throws and catches!

Dylan tests the ricochet LED prior to installation in the front of Ultra-Glow unit

Dylan made a special request that we show only certain details of his hack..sometimes less is more.

As the inventor of Skyaak, Canadian ring-wing glider it is a real honor, privilege and total rush to collaborate with a guy as talented as Dylan!

Among others, Dylan has been a long-time Skyaak enthusiast who has had a huge impact on R&D.

Before Dylan installs the LED into the sealed shaft he tests each unit.

Dylan presses on the mechanical on/off switch that will soon be inserted into the rear of the shaft.

I like the way the light of the LED in combination with the ambient light create interesting-shaped shadows and secondary highlights in this picture.

After the unit is fully assembled, Dylan gets first dibs on pointing out the on/off switch.

In this case we installed blue LED units in both the rear and front of the Ultra-Glow.

My friend Fred sent us a brief video clip of of couple of his buddies tossing an early prototype Skyaak Ultra-Glow around at Berkely Campus. Thought it would be a good time to introduce you to this, with all the chatter about the Ultra-Glow.

It was super-exciting to see the video emanating out of  California. It is short and sweet, with beautiful resolution.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJVBw1jLX2A]

Fred wrote, “Here’s a little bit of night flight with my new Skyaak Model 3 with the light kit. Flight is great, but more than that,, this thing looks great at night and was surprisingly easy to catch (especially for people that had never thrown a Skyaak before).”