Omega Recoil on the move

A quiet coil waits for dark

We moved from the Naval shipayard to a new shop in West Oakland. That seemed like a good excuse to call up some friends and throw some sparks. Since we weren’t ‘on stage’ this night, we were able to put some special members of our family and friends into the suit.

This is either Tansy or Kiki in the suit.

You can see the visitor’s cage in the background of the video and below. This allows us to bring members of the audience in up close quickly and easily.

The stage is set

Clinging together in the cage

We really like to have the chance to play around like this, it gives us a low-pressure time to try out new things like the cage to see how it would work in a real show.

Or, sometimes it’s just fun to watch your friends play around with their toys and see how they work with a Tesla Coil. Here’s Tansy in the Faraday suit playing with her flame whip with the coil.
Tansy in the suit, playing with her flame whip.

It’s nice to have friends.
Snail car and friends

East Bay Mini Maker Faire: Success

The Omega Recoil team had a lot of fun showing off our experimental coil, Jacob’s Ladders, and allowing for more audience participation than with our 9 foot Tesla coil. The audience in the yurt could even hear us when the coil wasn’t actively firing.

"Radio Fryer" Tesla Coil at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire, 2011
Here’s one shot of the audience in the yurt learning that experiments often fail. In this experiment we learned that the “Radio Fryer” Tesla Coil does not get hot enough to ignite sparklers.

We also had a chance to play with various fabrics with mylar treatments, florescent tubes, and we handed out squares of mylar sheeting, wire and reflective ribbons to allow the audience to experiment and create something to put atop the coil.

Sand by the Ton

Another adventure in hanging the coil from a crane. This time we, Omega Recoil, hung our entire setup from a gantry crane at American Steel Studios for Sand by the Ton. It was quite an effort – we even had to get the broken crane running for the first time in who knows how long. There were a lot of challenges – our first show was stopped short by the Fire Marshall due to the crowd we drew. In the end it was well worth it. We had a show where both the performer and the Tesla Coil were able to move around the performance space.

Sadly I didn’t get too many photos this time, but here is one:

Omega Recoil

Sausalito Lighted Yacht Parade

A very last minute adventure. Omega Recoil was invited by Dan Das Mann to participate with a number of other artist in the Sausalito Lighted Yacht Parade.  We weren’t sure just what to expect, and there was a constant threat that the weather would turn bad, but we risked it and hung our Tesla Coil from a crane, over the side of The R/V White Holly.  It was great and the rain held off until it was time to load out.

There are a few photos on Flickr.

And a stunning video: