Update

 Hey guys, just giving a progress report on the new and improved land sailer. The mechanism that folds its sail is working fine right now, but looks ready to fall apart, so I'll have to fix that, and the overall structure of the ship is very unstable. Im going to have to re-do a lot. the mast makes the center of gravity rather high, so im going to be adding counterbalances to the skateboard, to keep things from toppling over.

  Sorry, No picture for today, it was too unstable for me to take a good photo, and I doubt anyone here would want to see a pile of pipes and rope scattered on the ground. Thats all for now, I'll take more pictures as soon as I can.

It's Starting to Take Shape

 Good news everybody! I found my camera, and took pictures of what my sailer looks like so far.

 Here it is so far, it stands approximately 15 feet high, and stands on it's own.

 This is a close-up of the bottom framework, and where everything comes together.

 And lastly, here is a picture of the mast.

 Next, I need to finish up the mast, add some reinforcements, and get some new sail material. Too the hardware store! Stay tuned.

Drawings and What-not

 Hey everyone, work on the land sailer is going great, I'm just about ready to finish up the mainsail, and I need to add reinforcements to the overall structure. Unfortunatley, I lost my camera, and couldnt take any pictures, so today, I'm just going to post a few drawings of various things I thought up. Some have a story behind them, others are just there. Warning! some of these images have been automatically rotated, and I cant seem to fix that, no matter what I do. Try not to spontaneously combust due to extreme confusion. Well, enough stalling, here they are.

 This right here is just a random design I drew up during class one day.

 This is a drawing of a seaplane. I like aircraft.

 During dull parts of my day, I tend to imagine some random wall will open up to reveal hidden corridors and whatnot. This is a physical manifestation of such a daydream. (Its rotated sideways).

It's a city on gigantic tank-treads! hooray for industrialism! (Also rotated)

If i were ever to build a land sailer, and ride the winds over long distances, on an empty road, this might be what I would build for such a situation.

A folding arm-crossbow design. I want one of these. (Alas, t'was rotated.)

 Hand/glove armor design thing. I once made a prototype with aluminum and hot-glue, but it was fragile. While it lasted though, it was pretty cool. (rotated)

 Its a drawing of an island. (rotated)

 

 A city, built in a pitch-dark cave. inspired by the city of ember. (rotated)

This was a drawing of a roman-esq city, combined with industrial revolution and steampunk features. (rotated)

So thats pretty much it, as far as drawings go. I'll have some pictures up of the land sailer so far, either today or tomorrow. Stay tuned! (Again, I'm sorry about the rotated pictures. Pretend your an owl and turn your head or something, I dunno.)

And so it begins...

Today, I started building my new land sailer, but unfortunately spent the majority of my time cleaning up the garage. I plan to get more done tomorrow, but until then, here is what I have so far:

 

Fantastic, isn't it? all I was able to do was lay the foundation for the mainsail, buy attaching a 1 inch wide piece of zing piping onto the board, with some nuts and bolts. Tomorrow, I will be finalizing the foundation for the mainsail, and start working on the mainsail too. Its been getting windy lately, and so I need to get my stuff together, before it passes me by.

New* Project! Hooray! *not actually new.

 After rigorous debate with myself over what should be by new project (AKA, sleeping), I finally decided on what I'm going to be building. A new and improved land sailer. It will be 24 feet in height, and have a mast that can fold up to half its height while in motion, for going under overpasses and whatnot. Another improvement will be that it's mast will be more reinforced, and it will be able to stand up straight by itself (the last sailer had a mast that had to be held upward, or it would fall down).

Here is a rough sketch on what the finished craft may look like. That's all for now, stay tuned for more!

Sorry about not many new posts...

Ive been really sidetracked recently, and haven't been able to update my blog in a while. Progress is coming along fine with my kiteship designs, and I have made really big changes to its overall design. It wont look anything like the designs I posted previously.

Unfortunately, I received a comment on my last post about some guy claiming to have reproduced my idea, something about using it as his own, becoming rich, yadda yadda, yadda. Wether he is lying or not, and even though he will get absolutely nowhere with those sketches, I realized something. Im going to have to do better with releasing information on my projects. There is nothing I hate more in this world, than idea-thieves.

Here is a picture of a turtle to make up for everything. Enjoy.

Time really flies, huh?

Wow, its been a few days since my last post. I was planning to post something Ive been tinkering around wiht for the last few days, but forgot. Funny how time goes by huh? Well, Sorry Ive come up empty handed today, I'll be sure to post something interesting tomorrow. Untill then, here are some random drawings I made

 So what these are, are various blueprints for a flying machine, that I have dubbed, the "Kite-Ship". You know how sailboats can navigate the ocean in most directions with a simple, one directional breeze? Well my thinking is that you can do that with a semi-elaborate, free-flying kite design. Being able to cut and glide through the air, on a modified kite without a string. So, thats all for now folks! Stay Tuned...

About the Land Sailer

So I received a few questions about my land sailer, that I talked about breifly in my last entry. Here I'm going to answer those questions, Q and A style.

Q: What have you used, a longboard or a classic skateboard? How did you dock it on the skate?

A: Its a longboard, but it could be built on a classic skateboard if one wanted to, fairly easily. The sail is attatched to the board by screwing an end cap for PVC pipes, to a spherical, swiveling office chair wheel. The swivel-wheel/PVC end cap is then bolted onto the top of the skateboard. (shown below)

Q: How much is it possible to accelerate with this land kitesurfer?

A: First of all, It's not a kite surfer, kite surfers are people who hang onto massive kites to propel them on the water, standing on surfboards. This is a land sailer, a windsailer with wheels.

Secondly, with a large, well built sail, you could go as fast as the wind can take you. I personally have gone up to 20 mph on a windy day on my sailer.


 Q: What material did you use for the sticks?

A: PVC pipes, with a smaller zinc pipe that runs along inside of the PVC, for added reinforcement. The entire mainsail is approximately 12 feet high. Below is a picture.

Well, that's all for now! Stay tuned.

An Introduction

 Alright, so here I am, making a blog, documenting my various projects and ideas, as well as some rambling along the way. So let me introduce myself, I'm Jack, and i fancy myself an amateur inventor. Throughout the day, I'm constantly dreaming up new ideas, and drawing out "how would this work if it existed" on paper. most of the time, thats where they stay. On paper...

 BUT once in a blue moon, I get off my lazy butt and take the initiative to build a basic model or prototype of the design. I never usually get very far off from that, but still, once in a while, I end up with a very nice finished product.

Take my land sailer for example:

  It's not a perfect vehicle, it still has duct-tape patches and damaged parts on it, but its still a decent sailer in my opinion. On a nice windy day, i can start to approach 20 on it, so it was definatley worth the trouble of making, and is probably my most successful project so far. I'm hoping to change that in the near future, and make my new creations even better than the current ones.

Here's another picture of the sailer. I managed to keep it stable gliding down a path on the coast, for about a mile. That is, until I crashed epically. It was still worth it though.

 

So that is all for now, I will keep updating hopefully as frequently as once or twice a week.