
The Skysphere - techaddict009
http://www.theskysphere.com/
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VLM
I LOLed a bit at the low cost on this and the authors treehouse. Its kind of
like cheap ham radio antennas, where the wire to put up a 160M dipole is only
$10 but it costs $3M to buy a piece of land big enough and unregulated enough
to put it on.

Aside from that, cool project.

Where I live people would make the windows open/removable and call it the
worlds most expensive and outlandish deer hunting tree stand.

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allsystemsgo
Looks more like a cool piece of architecture. The "tech" isn't outlandish.
Nifty though.

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ChuckMcM
Not exactly a "cave" if its up on top of a tower :-). Looks like a fun sort of
observation tower. Wondering how it fairs in a lightning storm.

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presty
> Wondering how it fairs in a lightning storm.

"I thought about this some time ago, lighting takes tge path of the least
resistance, so theoretically it will just travel straight down the main column
and into the earth"

From his facebook
[https://www.facebook.com/theskysphere](https://www.facebook.com/theskysphere)

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ChuckMcM
There is that, but there is the whole 'coil' thing. Generally conductors have
something called the 'skin' effect, which is that as they conduct the
electrons move along the outer surface. So the skysphere's outer surface forms
a ring where the current will move out to the edge, and then back to the
center before going into the ground (or more literally coming from the ground
but that is not important here). The change in current in the outer rings will
create a magnetic pulse inside the ring that is proportional to the change in
current, per Ampere's law. And for conductors that are inside the sphere part,
they will experience a very large change in magnetic flux, which will then
induce an electric current in any conductors they have inside of them.

It is entirely possible that every piece of electronic equipment inside the
sphere will be destroyed by the resulting EMP. Or simply magnetized. But I'd
really want to compute flux lines based on the lightning hitting the top,
splitting down for four 'rings' (Kirkoff's law) and then going on down via the
center into the earth.

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VLM
I was slightly disappointed to discover he built it on the ground, was looking
forward to seeing him handle pieces up in the air. Could be done, although
obviously harder / more interesting job.

I'm sure the last thing he wants is suggestions but rotating the floor would
be interesting, also folding and unfolding the floor and stuff would be
interesting, and probably help with wind load calculations.

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pothibo
The Tui gave his Kiwi status away!

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suvelx
Hah, yeah. I was wondering where it was, thought it could be NZ, but Ireland
and Scotland look pretty similar.

It was the Tui that confirmed my suspicions.

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carl_
Cool idea, terrible website.

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mr_sturd
I was scrolling down the page wondering why he was dismantling it... Mondays.

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CmonDev
By the end of 3 years it is no longer _high-_ tech.

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presty
this is really cool. and I can see him recovering the $ just by airbnbing it

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buckbova
It's like giant mcdonalds playground equipment with furnishing and lights. I
wouldn't say time well spent, but to each their own.

