1.) So tell us a little about yourself, your project, organization, or company that you’ll be displaying at the maker faire:
I started going to Burning Man related events around 2003 and noticed that flame effects were ubiquitous ranging from simple to elaborate. Previous to this I had an affinity for fire, but assumed there was no safe way to play with it. My curiosity led to questions on the details and around 2008 I made a simple propane lantern that cast ambient light. A few years later I attended a propane flame cannon workshop to take things up a notch. This is controlled manually and can be finessed in an analog manner from open to closed and everything in between.
2.) What got you into making or creating? Have you always been a tinkerer?
After years of telling my friends about all the cool things all these cool people were doing I had an epiphany. I didn’t need to drag them to these festivals to show them these cool people. After all, I was a person, too. In order to show my friends this cool stuff, all I had to do was to become cool myself. So I did.
3.) How did you get started on your current project? How long have you been working on your current project?
A few years after making my first flame cannon, a friend offered me the pieces of a project that he had lost motivation for. This was around February 2013. The Arduino and electronics were all worked out along with a simple program that opened and closed solenoid valves. This traded the analog finesse for precision and an ability to control things from a distance. So I built new flame cannons using those valves and tweaked the code to my liking. There is a button for the left cannon, a button for the right cannon and a 3rd button that randomly selects pre-programmed sequences. An example of a sequence is the morse code for S.O.S. or the first few seconds of “The Final Countdown”.
4.) How can people find out more about your project, company, or organization?
douglas.staas@gmail.com