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We Gamed. We Saw. We...um...Camped?
Following on from previous light-based-fun installations, Newmindspace set out on Saturday night to attach enough coloured LED lights onto fishing wire, suspended by helium-filled balloons, to reach higher than the CN Tower, over 1800 feet. About halfway to the goal, however, the wire snapped in half, sending several hundred lights soaring off into the night sky, trailing behind a cluster of white balloons. The rest of the lights snaked harmlessly down to earth on the King's College Circle lawn.
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Is it attached to Convocation Hall or the ground?
From the pictures, it looks like they were attached to the ground.
1800ft!??
Wonder if they cleared this with air traffic control. Most small aircraft fly at that altitude around the downtown core.
Seems pretty stupid to fly something that high.
I'm guessing alcohol was involved in the planning.
Nope, not a drunk stunt. Totally organized and cleared with air traffic control. So before you insult the intelligence of the organizers get the information. All you need to do is check out their website.
I have agree with evilguy - that's the first thing I thought when I saw this story.
Flying something 1800ft up is actually pretty dangerous for civilian aircraft or the Medevac helicopters that are in the area. These sorts of "whimsical" things need to be well-thought through and the priority should be "do no harm."
I just wrote this but Air Traffic control was aware of the stunt and diverted aircraft away from the area
Goal or no goal, those are some beautiful pictures of Con Hall after the winter's first snowfall.
On a side note, anyone hear of someone reporting their house being assaulted by a rain of Christmas lights yet?
Hallucinogens then.
Now even the wind is stealing your LEDs, Kevin.
That looks like an incredible feat. This hasn't gotten enough coverage!
As mentioned, aside from the breakage, it was all planned properly with the knowledge of the proper authorities. Immediately after it broke someone was on the phone to let them know what happened.
The lights flew off to the southeast and went very high very quickly. I assume they'll get to a certain height, the balloons will break as the surrounding air pressure drops, and the whole thing will drop in the lake.
I walked past this on my way home—is the impromptu open-air rave a persistent feature of Newmindspace events? It's kind of annoying.
The website says, "We have calculated the weight and we can definitely pull this off," but my guess is that they only estimated the number of balloons required. The self-weight of fishing line plus the lights might not exceed the tensile strength of the line. Regardless, momentary loading (snags as the line is fed by hand, wind gusts) would cause even 80-lb. line to fail well before 550 m. The most trivial of engineering calculations would have predicted that.
I showed up around 11 to see the end result but there wasn't a trace of the event. How long did it last, given that it didn't work out as planned? And what was the turnout?
How could you be sure that it would fall into the lake? A string of LEDs (+ batteries?) dropping from 1800 ft could do some serious damage.
thank you for the beautiful photos :) as mentioned, air traffic control was aware of the event. the cable used was rated for much higher force than was exerted, so we think it was a manufacturing defect, oh well! It was beautiful and hit higher than Manulife Centre before liftoff. And the LEDs will have a second life, much closer to the ground, in December. Thanks to those who volunteered and donated!
if it drops into the lake, some dolphins may eat them LEDs and die!!!!
no, but seriously, hope those LEDs don't harm someone/something when they plunge back to earth