As most of you already know, we are going bigger than ever with amazing effort from a vast and creatively charged crew. To help keep that energy focused the steering committee has authorized the creation of The Plan. In efforts to keep us all on the same page and to increase the chances of an alien landing, here are several JPGs illustrating the layout for this year’s epic burn.

When setting up your camp, please maintain the paths that will connect everyone to our Nexus Center Camp with our very own Cafe Nexus provided by David and Hali. These paths will be lit by Mark’s awesome color changing LED lights. All this will help facilitate the alien abductions giving them easy access to most sites. Of course if you prefer not to be abducted, then camp as far away from a path as possible. Only then will you ensure being a spectator to someone else’s abduction and not the abductee.

If you have a large RV/Trailer/Box Truck… please set up in the area’s marked for Large Vehicle camping. This will help create a wind buffer and allow smaller camping in the middle. It will also give a wind break to the spaceship during those last crucial 20 feet of landing. The idea is to have a more muppet friendly environment around center camp and the inner ring path.

When you arrive, look for the Welcome Wagon for help in finding the most effective camp site for your needs.

On another note, as much as we love and welcome anyone willing to help put things together, you can become many times more effective if you also bring some basic tools, such as: hammers, wrenches, socket sets, sewing machines, cordless drills, scissors, saws, a million philips head screwdriver drill bits, duct tape, zip ties, shade umbrellas, margarita mix, soldering kit, electrical tape, blow torch, alien landing lights, bike repair tools, fork lift, anything you think might be useful and is not too much of a pain in the ass to bring.

One last item: The bar will celebrate it’s second burn, however it is a bit shy on bar accessories. If you’ve got some, feel free to bring any items you think our friendly nexborhood bartenders would find useful, such as mixers, cutting boards, limes, shot glasses, chalk board/dry erase board for drink specials, hacked bar poker game console etc….

Can’t wait to see everyone on the playa,

-Crisp

This year’s camp seems surreal! You all know about the ridiculous project the Nexus pyro team is undergoing but you may not know the project the Tesla Coil crew is putting together, so let me explain…

Nexus has long been an epicenter for art, creativity, mind expansion, friendship, and a place where ideas seem to take on a life of their own.

I think of Nexus as a collective of energy that transcends dimensional barriers that reach the very soul of all those who enter. It is not only a place of epic visual, auditory and performance art, but a place that creates an awakening deep inside that cannot be explained in words. This is why we have gone towards a project that focuses on a representation of the energy created during our transformation from the everyday illusion we live to the all things possible Playa; called The Galaxatron.

The Galaxatron is the power plant of Nexus. It is a 30 foot glowing dome that draws its energy from the Playa through large pyramid conduits that surround the dome (top secret alien technology) that focus this energy into mega conductors that each plug into the dome. These mega conductors are each programmed to show energy flow through thousands of programmed LED’s; and in the heart of this alien machine lays the Tesla Coil.

Many of you may have seen the coil at Burning Man in ’05, Decompression, or hopefully somewhere else when it worked without a hitch. It has been brought to the Playa in the recent years but has had many technical difficulties associated with grounding issues and magnetic shifts that made it extremely temperamental in the harsh desert environment. After much research, expert consultation as well as trial and error we have ironed out how to achieve ignition in an environment that eats electronics for breakfast (thanks again to the steering committee for putting together an awesome galactic tech support line).

Description:

We are building an art piece to be at the corner spot at Burning Man 2010. The project is called “The Galaxatron”. It is a 30ft geodesic dome that we are having powder coated to reflect high power led lighting.

We will have five 12 ft pipes running to pyramids that stand 8ft tall and are each encoded with a different element (Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Air and Spirit) with both old school druid symbols along with Mandarin Chinese symbols. Each 4 inch pipe will contain pre-programed led lighting to emulate energy being transferred to the dome through these pyramid energy sources.

There will be a letter on the top of each pyramid all five spelling N-E-X-U-S. Each of these pyramids will be painted and textured to simulate pyramid sandstone to mach the Playa and will be lit with high power led wash panels. Finally we will have the giant Tesla Coil in the middle that will arc and hit the dome and Koleman juggling fire battling 1,500,000 volts!

We have also have acquired 2 full color lasers that will blast the camp with a shower of light. These things are very cool.

Color Laser 1

Color Laser 2

show Bassnectar rocking it at the Nexus dome. You can see the all 42 of these awesome images here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelholden/sets/72157623208355287/

Click here to view the embedded video.

The 2008 Nexus Fire installation by Erin Banwell, Josh Silverstein, Al Traves.

The Fire cauldron was the center piece of the 2008 Nexus fire installation:

A 7 ft diameter, half sphere pool of water with   fire bubbling up out of the murky depths.

It became a gathering spot.

Heat seekers came….

Conversationalists came……..

Some people showed up with a bag of hot dogs and a long stick and proceeded to make dinner…

One guy decided to go for a little swim………. while the fire was lit…………………..go figure.

The Fire Cauldron made an appearance at the South Lake Tahoe decom party, where it provided warmth, light, and good place to conversate for about 250.

.

The 2009 Nexus Fire Art installation at Burning Man consisted of 5 seperate flame effects. Four of these were equipped with 3/4 inch solenoid valves and 125 gallon accumulator tanks, and were capable of producing 15 to 20 ft bursts of flame. The fifth flame effect, “Big Boy” (video below), was equipped with a 2 inch solenoid valve and 125 gallon accumulator tank, and was capable of producing 25 to 40 ft bursts of flame! All five flame effects were controlled by a keyfob remote control. With full batteries in the remote, we had a range of about 400 ft!

We developed a circuit that could be used to make a flame effect go to music , but unfortunately the audio cable we ran from the DJ booth was bad, and by the time we realized the problem, all cables were already buried in hundreds of feet of ditches, so we were not able to use this sweet effect on the playa. Here’s a video of one of the test runs:

Created, designed and constructed by:

Erin Banwell

Nathan Crane

Josh Silverstien

Coming to a Burning Man 2010 near you…

The Nexus PyroSphere

The PyroSphere is a 22 ft diameter geodesic sphere, elevated on five 15 ft legs for a total hieght of  37 ft. The sphere itself has 92 flame effect valves, each located at one of the sphere’s 92 vertices. Each flame effect valve is an 1/8 inch solenoid (electronic) valve, which emits a small, 3 to 4 ft fire ball. Each of the 92 valves is controlled individually by a microcontroller, creating a “persistence of vision” illusion similiar to the Burninator installation of 2009, only spread out over the surface of a sphere, creating 3 dimensional fire animations. Directly below the sphere, sits a 6 ft diameter clear bowl full of water. LEDs light up the water from below, as  it bubbles fire, creating a camp fire style gathering area.
In it’s essence, the PyroSphere is a gathering place. A place of warmth, and conversation. The PyroSphere’s dramatic silhouette combined with hundreds of elaborate, rapid fire patterns, will be visible from far across the playa.
Interactivity:
The PyroSphere’s patterns will be designed by the masses! Mark Pauley aka: Pauley Unsaturated , who works for Apple, programming Safari among other things, is finishing up the “PyroSphere Editor”: a simple program hosted on the web that allows the user to make patterns for the PyroSphere. The user selects which flame effect valves fire off, and in what order, etc with a simple, visual, point-and-click interface. When the user is finished with their pattern, the Editor outputs a 3d animation which is viewable by anyone visiting the site. People view the pattern animations, and rate them from 1 to 10. The most popular patterns will be assigned a pattern number and used on the playa, and the creators of these patterns will be emailed the number of their pattern so they can request it from the PyroSphere Operator at any time during operation on the playa. The PyroSphere editor will be widely publicized well before the event, to allow as many people as possible an opportunity to contribute.

Click on the images below for PyroSphere Updates

Donate $50 or more and get a Nexus Hoodie!

The Pyrosphere Crew:

Erin Banwell: Artist/creator, design, management, R&D, flame effect expert, electronics, junior programmer, foreman, etc.

Steve Cronburg: Lead programmer, R&D, electronics, design

Nathan Crane: Flame effect expert, Fuel plumbing, design

Robert Cordtz: Sphere construction manager, visionary

Vaughn Parsons: Expert brainstormer, resident wise guy, any job that entails bloody knuckles….

Mark Pauley: iPhone App programmer

Josh Silverstein: Organizer, motivator, crew management

Chris Nowak: Base design and construction

Chris Pomodoro: Architectural design

Donate to Help Our Crew Build the Pyrosphere 2010!

Every little bit helps…