| FLAMEO, HOTMAN! The art of firebending as seen in Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra is a melding of Asian martial arts and pyrokinesis. So how can we control fire with fancy fight moves in real life? With Arduinos, of course! The flamethrower part of this project is composed of a butane fuel chamber and a solenoid valve. At the business end there is a modified arc lighter. The punch activated part of this project is an Arduino Pro Mini and an accelerometer (in this case an LIS3DH Breakout from Adafruit). A fist performing a punch has a fairly unique acceleration profile that looks like a significant positive acceleration (the beginning of the punch), followed by an extreme deceleration (the end of the punch) within a small window of time (<100ms). That means our Arduino can distinguish punches from normal everyday gesticulations pretty easily! Once everything is mounted to an arm, we have a flamethrower that can be actuated by an Arduino only when the arm has thrown a punch. And before you can say "sparky sparky boom man" you've become a firebender! This isn't a beginner project, and even for advanced users there is danger inherent in shooting fireballs from your fists. Read at your own risk! Fuel Chamber1 / 2 • It's a series of tubes Get some pipes! Specifically:
Use teflon paste or tape on the threads and tighten everything up with crescent and pipe wrenches. Make sure the lever of the ball valve and the solenoid valve line up, since eventually this will be mounted to a flat board of wood. Butane CanisterYou'll need an adapter to fill your fuel tank with butane. A 3/16" aluminum tube fits perfectly into the quick connect. With the ball valve closed, put the aluminum tube in until it hits bottom and mark your cut line. Use a tube cutter to cut your tube down to size. Mushroom one end a bit with a ball peen hammer and slide an O-ring up to the edge. This will give your tube a way to push against the quick connect and form a seal. Put an O-ring around the butane canister nozzle also. I used a benzomatic butane canister, which is pricier than butane for stoves but doesn't have any of that putrid smell added. Test For LeaksFilling with butaneTest out your custom fill adapter and fuel chamber! Dunk your chamber into water or squirt it with soapy water to check for leaks. Once you're confirmed leak free, go ahead and test that solenoid valve. A 2 cell LiPo is perfect for this project, so touch the solenoid's leads to the battery's and make sure you get a cool butane mist. If you used teflon paste on the pipe threads you might spray some of that too, that's probably fine. Arm MountYou'll need something sturdy to mount everything onto. I used 1/4" thick poplar, which isn't exactly fire proof but holds up well enough. The board is 2.5" wide and 9" long. I marked two holes for the handle about an inch from the end, and marked holes for zip-tying the fuel chamber such that the fuel chamber nozzle was 0.75" from the end. I used pipe strapping to attach some 1" D rings to the back end of the wood board. Zip tie the fuel chamber to the wood, pull tight! You don't want any give there. I hot glued a 1" nylon strap to one of the D rings, then looped through the other and held the end in my hand. This serves as a sort of an emergency release, so that if anything bad happens it will be easy to ditch the flamethrower. Just let go of the strap and fling the bad things far away! IgnitionAn Arc Lighter like this is a pretty neat little device. Let's take it apart! Most arc lighters I've seen have a little screw on the bottom, unscrew it and DON'T LOSE IT! Remove the innards and get rid of any hinge-y parts (you'll probably need to poke some rods out of holes). Get your trusty rotary tool and cut away a section by the button hole to make room for wires. Solder lead wires to the button terminals. Get your trusty multimeter and measure the voltage at the wires (did I mention the lighter has probably been on this whole time?). You should read 3-4 volts take note of which is positive and which is negative (you'll need this info to connect to the optoisolator). In my case orange was ground and yellow was positive. Put the innards back into the metal case and re-screw that small screw that you saved from earlier. ElectronicsCheck out the attached schematic. Some notes:
Putting It TogetherMount your electronics and the arc lighter. I used double sided foam tape and hot glue because I was in a hurry, you may want to use more secure methods. Upload the awesome code that should be at the bottom of this page. Plug in your LiPo/turn the electronics on and do a dry test. NO BUTANE AT THIS POINT. Just test to see if you can get a click from the solenoid and a high pitched arc from the lighter when you throw a decent punch. You can also tweak the punch thresholds to make it easier to trigger for now. Once you're reasonably sure that you won't accidentally set yourself on fire, turn everything off and fill the fuel chamber. I find that a good 20-Mississippi count will give you at least 6 good fireballs, or just enough to complete one modified Dancing Dragon. Make sure you're in a well ventilated area, and let the excess butane air out a bit before turning everything on. Have a friend and a fire extinguisher handy and have a plan for what you'll do if your arm catches on fire. Don't aim at anything you don't want to be on fire. I highly recommend wearing welding gloves until you're comfortable with shooting fireballs out your fists. The thing that gave me the most trouble was getting the butane to ignite. I found that the arc lighter, while convenient for many reasons was "blown out" easily by the butane stream. After some finagling it seems that putting the arc further out and to the side of the stream is better for ignition, but it's a bit awkward to mount. Definitely room for improvement!
Techniques: Growing Flame: Now in this you will be making a candle flame grow and shrink. It isn't really useful but it does teach control with fire. First get a candle and light it. Sit there in a comfortable position, close your eyes and imagine yourself on a hot beach or a volcano, but imagine the flame as well. Imagine it flickering for a couple of minutes just watch it flickering in your mind. Now, imagine the chi in your body like veins, like red chords going through your body and imagine the ones in your arms and hands getting bigger and brighter. Point your hand at the flame and imagine the red chord flowing into the flame, feeding it energy, making it get bigger, and if you do this correctly, it should get bigger. To make it get smaller, imagine a red substance going from the flame and into you making the flame smaller and giving you more chi. Heating Your Body: *This will help you use your Internal Fire and have it heat in your body*. First, you need to be in a cold place, or at least feeling cold. Feel your chi and feel it slowly getting hotter and intensifying throughout your body. As it gets hotter, you should feel warmer and warmer the longer you focus your chi like this. This is good for staying warm on a cold day and maybe just maintaining a cozy feeling. This only works in slightly low temperatures, not at all below freezing temperatures. I'm not saying you should jump outside naked in a severe blizzard and attempt this technique. Hehe. It would be VERY cold, and not a smart idea. It wouldn't work well, it's just a small helpful heat source. Flame Control: First you need a flame. Make sure it is in the open (not surrounded by glass that most candles have). Hold out your palm and feel the heat of the flame, the raw energy coming from it. Build up your chi in your hands and release it directly out from your palms towards the flame. Keep in mind that you don't want to burst your chi towards the flame. Be very gentle. Slowly and carefully you want to radiate it towards the flame, but still be direct with it if you know what I mean. Feel your chi colliding with the energy coming off of the flame. Feel it merging, becoming one with it. Feel as if the chi you radiated has become the energy of the flame. Try to convince your mind that the energy from the flame is yours now, and you control it. Make sure you keep a strong connection to the flame throughout the entirety of this technique. Controlling Fire's Movement: Light a candle and put it in front of you. Make a Chi Ball (see the Chi page) and imagine the chi ball splitting apart into chi strings. Visualize the strings of chi filling the flame with chi energy, then imagine the strings wrapping around the flame. Move your hands around and feel the flame follow your hand. Video tape it or have a truthful person watch in order to tell if you succeed. Practice this until you can easily do it. Don't be discouraged if you can't do it on your first try. Bending is hard and takes a lot of practice. Once you've done this, congratulations! You are officially a Fire Bender! Dancing Flame: All you do in this technique is make the fire "dance" or grow and shrink. First, light a candle in a dark room. To tell you the truth, this is probably just as easy as the technique in the paragraph above. You can actually do this with your eyes open, so it will be easy to tell when you have accomplished it. In terms of visualization, simply visualize the fire getting taller, and then slowly get smaller until it's back to its normal size. Keep doing this over and over until you can do it just as easy as setting a leaf on fire. It helps to even out your breath with the flame as you manipulate it. Direct the Flame: Now if you can grow the flame, this should be easy. First, visualize that your at a volcano or somewhere again and picture the flame. Now, imagine the chi in your arms again and make the red chords in your arms grow brighter and get bigger but now imagine the cords coming out of your hands like strings and connect them to the flames. Then, use them as puppet strings and use all your chi to move the flame in the direction you want. This can be fun if you use this technique and the one at the top at the same time. Shape the Flame: This is relatively easy so what your going to do is make the flame any shape you want. This can be useful. Visualize the place you think would be good for fire, now see the candle and imagine your chi going out of your fingers and around the candle. Shape the chi into whatever shape say a squiggle and compress it tightly around the flame and imagine the flame going into that shape. Leaf on Fire: Go outside and find a very dry leaf and place it cupped in your hands. Imagine yourself in the hot and fiery place you think about. Now focus on the red chords in your hands and make them glow as bright as possible. Feel the heat of them and then slowly imagine the redness coming out of your hands and surrounding the leaf. Then, imagine it going into the leaf glowing slightly red. Start to see the smoke, try to smell the smoke, and feel the heat. Imagine sparks coming out of the leaf and eventually turn into flames. BE VERY CAREFUL!!! Also, try this technique when the leaf is away from you and try it with not dry leaves and paper. Fire Shot: Put your hands in the position of making a chi ball. If you are afraid, you won't be able to do this. Make a chi ball. I want you to keep draining the energy from the sun and visualize the energy from your chakras are also getting more energy from the sun. Now visualize the energy going into your chi ball. Visualize your hands are matches with no light. Picture the white energy between your hand and make it grow and turing it into a burning fire. Sling your arm forward at an inflammable place. Breathing Fire: Visualize the temperature going up. As you breathe, feel the heat going in and out. Imagine in front of your mouth a ball sucking up heat. As you exhale picture the ball of heat breaking and all the heat turning to fire, rushing out with your breath. Holding Fire: For this technique, you need to be able to do the Leaf on Fire technique quite well. Get a leaf and get ready to multi-task, but first you are going to create a shield around your hand so it doesn't get burnt doing this. To make a chi shield, imagine blue veins because it's opposite of red and imagine it seeping out of your hand and around it, creating a solid energy barrier. Keep imagining that and get the leaf. Place it in your hand and set it on fire while still focusing on the barrier. THIS IS DANGEROUS, and if done incorrectly you can be burnt. If done correctly, you shouldn't feel anything, maybe just a bit of warmth. Fire Bending Combat: Fireballs: A basic ability; jabs and punches produce miniature fireballs and missiles if flame. These can be charged up (refer to the Charged Attacks technique) to create larger and slower bursts, or swift strikes to keep opponents off-balance. Fire Streams: This is another basic Fire Bending ability, Fire Benders can shoot continuous streams of fire from their fingertips, fists, palms, or legs. These streams can be widened to create flame-thrower techniques. Blazing Rings & Arcs: Spinning kicks or sweeping arm movements create rings and arcs to slice larger, more widely spaced, or evasive targets. Fire Bomb: A more short-range attack, a Fire Bender can create a flame at the end of a limb, and thrust the flame down in an explosive burst. Fire Daggers: Creating blowtorch-like jets from the fist or fingertips to use as close-range sword-like attacks. This technique has a noticeable weakness; it lacks the ability to block physical objects. Fire Whip: An extension of a Fire Stream, this continuous stream of flame can be used as a whip. Fire Blade: A more advanced version of a Blazing Arc, Fire Benders can narrow their Fire Arcs to create thin blades of fire that they can launch at their opponents. Fire Lashes: An even further extension of the Fire Whip/Stream, Fire Benders can create a long lash of fire, and bring it down on their enemies. Fire Circle: This is when Fire Benders create a circle of fire, and suspend it in the air for an extended period of time. Shield of Fire: Creates a protective fire shield around the front or whole body of a Fire Bender that can deflect attacks and explosions. This may be a less powerful version of the Wall of Flames technique. Heat Control: Advanced Fire Benders have the ability to control heat. Using this technique, Fire BEnders can heat liquids like water and tea, heat metal to scalding temperatures, or melt ice. Blocking Fire: A skilled Fire Bender can diffuse and extinguish an oncoming fire blast from another Fire Bender with a swift kick, jab, or defensive movements, allowing them to stop attacks. Master Capabilities: Fire Discs: A whirling disc of flame, used at long range. Wall of Flames: One of Fire Bending's few defensive capabilities, either a situated explosion or controlled inferno, this wall of concentrated flames acts as a barrier to incoming attacks. It may be a more powerful version of the Fire Shield technique. It not only protects against attacks, but when used right, it can be used to stealthily escape from foes. Heat Redirection: Heat absorption allows for the absorption of heat from one hand and passing through one's body and out the other hand. Fire Augmentation: Fire Benders can also control the size and intensity of any nearby flames and can draw them in and manipulate them at will. Jet Propulsion: Skilled Fire Bending Masters are able to conjure huge amounts of flame to propel themselves at high speeds on the ground or through the air. Pressure Control: An advanced form of the Heat Control technique; the Fire Bender superheats the air around him, causing a rise in air pressure in small, enclosed areas with explosive results. Lightning Bending is the ability to control and summon electricity in any form. The hardest form of this is summoning and directing lightning. Because lightning is a very powerful form of static electricity, benders need to start with smaller amounts of energy and work up from there. This skill is very hard to learn when using large amounts of electricity, but fun and practical after the bender becomes more acquainted with the feel of it. |
How to become a firebender in real life
Postagens relacionadas
direito autoral © 2024 cemle Inc.
