Doctor X's Lifter | Burrowowl

My former roommate is a mad scientist. By this I don’t mean that he is a professional lab-worker. Nor do I mean that he sits around talking about foo fighters and gravimetric displacement manifolds (though he’s been known to do that as well). I mean he likes to build things. Strange, wondrous things. Tiny walking robots are manufactured in his spare bedroom. Little electronic bugs with ominous flashing lights were a theme for a while. Now, however, he has decided to defy gravity.

This little device has no moving parts, but when exposed to a current by means of a little transformer he built (which brings power from the wall down to 6 volts), it achieves flight. The little white threads you see are there to keep it from flying away from his table, and the little wisps of wire off to the right are the power lines. The purple light on the upper right-hand frame is just a little discharge of excess capacity. Outstanding. Bravo, man, bravo!

(3.8MB .MOV demonstration)

*2006-01-25 update: a bigger, better lifter has taken flight.

4 thoughts on “Doctor X's Lifter”

boob October 24, 2005 at 10:47 pm

So, how does it fly?

jdf October 25, 2005 at 9:41 am

That’s a darned good question. Apparently the lifter uses positive and negative EM fields to create a downward stream of ions, generating enough thrust to lift itself from the tabletop.

D O C T O R X October 28, 2005 at 11:14 pm

Well, ‘boob’, it is extremely complicated.
the emitor wire (charged with negitive 30,000 volts) emits(duh) very exited ion that move at a freaky, very, very fast adgitated state to the collector (tin foil strip). The extra particles create a thrust that lifts the device. Basicly (very basicly) an electric jet engine. Strangely, ambient atmoshere is not effected.

D O C T O R X October 28, 2005 at 11:14 pm

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