5 ms·
Gigantic Aluminium Spiders
- hailpixel 3y agoYou know, I like giant industrial projects and all, but based on the headline I was expecting something a little more exciting. Anyway, neat crane idea.
- pavel_lishin 3y agoYou gotta be the weirdness you want to see in the world! Let's learn to weld aluminum, and make our dreams come true.
- neom 3y agoIf you want something industrial, art, giant, and sometimes spider, there's always Storm King! :) https://collections.stormking.org/Browse/objects https://collections.stormking.org/Browse/objects (It re-opens in April, if anyone happens to be in New York and hasn't visited Storm King, I really cannot recommend it enough, it's a lot of fun, Dia too, Earth Room and Beacon are magic but honestly they're all amazing, so fun! https://www.diaart.org/visit/visit-our-locations-sites https://www.diaart.org/visit/visit-our-locations-sites)
- WJW 3y agoI was thinking more towards the strandbeest series (https://www.strandbeest.com/ https://www.strandbeest.com/), although those have entirely too many legs to be spiders and are also not made out of aluminium.
- tempodox 3y agoNice, but sadly no arachnids in sight…
- neom 3y agoStorm King no, although they did for a while, but Dia, yes: https://www.diaart.org/collection/collection/bourgeois-louise-crouching-spider-2003-l-2007-012 https://www.diaart.org/collection/collection/bourgeois-louis... Storm King also had a Louise Bourgeois. To me, if we're talking giant spiders, it's always always Louise Bourgeois.
- tempodox 3y agoIndeed, this one is spectacular.
- jletroui 3y agoIf you want industrial giant spider, Kumo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E1PpbncR20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E1PpbncR20 is a must see. "Les machines de l'île" have other beasts of the same kind: https://www.lesmachines-nantes.fr/ https://www.lesmachines-nantes.fr/.
- lobochrome 3y agoSuper
- eschneider 3y agoFor crane geeks, that _is_ pretty exciting. :)
- tshaddox 3y agoYou're not unreasonable for expecting something at least vaguely spider-like. This just looks like a big crane for assembling big wind turbines. Is the "spider" part supposed to be the web-like aluminum frame of the crane? That seems like a stretch, but it's the most charitable interpretation I've got.
- Solvency 3y agoI thought this would be about Kevin Smith's crazy Superman / Wild Wild West story before clicking. I have to say… WindSpider is a pretty weird name for this. If anything I'd say it looks a bit more like an abstract bird/crane.
- throwup238 3y agoTotally underrated film that doesn’t get the praise it deserves.
- mcswell 3y agoI posted a link to some fandom before I saw your posts.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- failrate 3y agoA "spider crane" is a particular kind of crane.
- 082349872349872 3y agoThanks, it looks like what I had been hoping for is called a "spider excavator".
- ooterness 3y agoMeanwhile, I was imagining giant weaponized mecha (either real or artistic), in the style of Spidertron from Factorio. https://wiki.factorio.com/Spidertron https://wiki.factorio.com/Spidertron
- teekert 3y agoMe too. I’m disappointed. Also, I very much doubt “no height limitations” as I have yet so see anything without limitations.
- tshaddox 3y agoIndeed, but this company's cranes do not to my untrained eye resemble spider cranes.
- jt2190 3y agoThe pictures of the Windspider Crane System on their home page give a good idea of how this is intended to work: https://windspider.com/ https://windspider.com/
- semi-extrinsic 3y agoMight take the CGI with a grain of salt though. AFAICT the company has existed for 4 years, has 7 employees and no actual office address. They own zero physical assets. Seems most likely they're trying to do just enough to get some patents so they'll be bought out by one of the large offshore service companies and make a nice profit.
- buro9 3y ago> The self-erecting crane has no weight or height limitations and can be used in very windy locations We have our space elevator!
- twic 3y agoUnfortunately not, there is no wind in space.
- jagged-chisel 3y agoThe crane requires wind? I don’t see that.
- a1369209993 3y ago> We have our space elevator! Out of context, that sounds like a kite. Can it be used in locations that are not very windy (like, for example, space)?
- rokkitmensch 3y agoIt braces against the tower itself, is for maintenance in situ instead of towing turbine towers to port for repair.
- whalesalad 3y agoCame for spiders. Was disappointed.
- vitiral 3y agoMaybe they should have called it a "Web Crane" instead? Or heck, even go for "Spider Web Crane" if they love the word "spider" so much.
- dukeofdoom 3y agoWhy wouldn't it be better just to build 4 smaller wind turbines in place of the large ones. How does the math work here.
- IshKebab 3y agoLarge ones are higher up and windy gets faster the higher you go. Though I think even if that wasn't the case it's more efficient to build a few big turbines than many small ones.
- SkyPuncher 3y agoI believe power increases exponentially with scale. Essentially, Area = (pi) * r^2 (but much more complex given it's turbines). This article has a good summary: https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/wind-turbines-bigger-better https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/wind-turbines-bigger-be... * 89ft - 0.2mw * 173ft - 0.9mw (2x radius, 4.5x power) * 410ft - 3mw (2.5x radius, 3x power) * 820ft - 17mw (2x radius, 5.5x power)
- usrusr 3y agoIn addition to the other replies, bigger rotors achieve their power at lower rpm. That's because blade tip speed needs to stay well below the speed of sound, at all sizes. Where small, hectic rotations are annoying, the large ones appear majestic. They are seen very far, but blend in much better. The small turbines are the ones that are catching the eye. You can spend many hours with a mix of different turbine sizes in view perceiving that difference without really being able to put a finger on it. But when you do realize how that plays out, you will never ever consider two smaller turbines where a larger would do. Chances are you'd even prefer a larger one over a single smaller.
- londons_explore 3y agoFloating wind turbines can power themselves, and therefore, as long as there is at least a little wind, and they have some small propellers on the bottom, get anywhere in the world. That seems to make installation and maintenance super cheap - you can build them anywhere in the world, command them to sail themselves to the right place, and just have a ship come by and hook them up to the power grid in perhaps an hour per turbine.
- lobochrome 3y agoUnless something goes wrong, and they crash into a ferry. When edge cases become catastrophic, engineering gets hard.
- tempodox 3y ago> Solution scalable to over 1500 tonnes of effective lifting capacity, with no height restrictions. Fascinating tech, very nicely done. I love it.
- swader999 3y agoI wonder how the infrasound from these affects whales and other marine life.
- nuancebydefault 3y agoSomehow I like the amount of syllabes were used to spell the word often referred to as aluminum. Its a more colourful word altogether.
- mcswell 3y agoSort of like this, only aluminum? https://evil.fandom.com/wiki/Spider_Tank_(Wild_Wild_West) https://evil.fandom.com/wiki/Spider_Tank_(Wild_Wild_West)