The Pyramid Project
The Pyramid Project |
|
Daily News - May 2008
30 May 2008 Water Dropping Thanks to Wilder and Teddi for keeping a good close eye on our escape...
We are thinking we have to move Tuesday but this is to be checked on Sunday
Iron Advancing Too slowly, by close of play only two sides had their 2 diagonal central irons in place. The guys will be working all weekend...
28 May 2008 Scaffold Complete From up here you can see the jungle on the Western side of Iquitos. We are on the Eastern side which basically means we can see over the top of Iquitos! (Next time I'll take a camera up)
27 May 2008 Have you guessed what it is yet? Our two week race to get completed by Saturday 31st May is still within grasp. The water is now 4m, the entrance is closing but we are confident we will make it thru on Monday
On the other side of the river the pyramid's new location is looking very peaceful and tranquil. The water there is only about 1m deeper at 5m but that should be enough to get us thru this difficult year. Once we get the permanent buoyancy system completed the pyramid will be able to land on a flat river bed if needs be. This week we have been investigating buying a 60 horse power, 10 man speed boat but at nearly $7000 (£3,500) it is currently out of grasp, we simply need the new investor to come on board or get the Shamanic Tour running. With this boat the crossing to Iquitos will be 3 minutes. We have an old boat we can use which takes 12 minutes to cross
Ankh Repainted The Ankh has been repainted and now is looking very golden! Orison on the right has the task of figuring out how to secure it in position. There is a lightening conductor running thru the Ankh The Ankh, which is the ancient Egyptian "Symbol of Life", is 2.222m high and 1/11th the height of the pyramid. The width is it's height multiplied by Fibonacci's Phi (0.618) which injects the beauty of the universe. 2 is for connection & love and 1 is for new beginnings. In numerology a number is repeated for accentuation so "11" is more of 1 and "2.222" is lots of love The Ankh on the pyramid is an encoded numerological message that reads... "Rejuvenate your beautiful life here, Love Pyramid x.xxx"
Celebration The end of Phase 1 will be marked with the raising of the Ankh. This should occur on Sunday at 5pm. On this day we are planning a celebration for the workers, their loved ones and all of my friends who can come (I extend this invitation to any tourists who find themselves in Iquitos on that night). Any media representatives are welcome too. At 7pm we will be showing the 7 months history of the project in pictures and English and Spanish commentary - we will also take questions. Because we will have started to move the pyramid by then it will be closer to the Boulevard that night
History Channel Last Friday I welcomed the History Channel aboard (Amanda UK). They are making a documentary about "initiation" and had been doing an Ayahuasca ceremony with a local shaman here, our friend Percy Garcia. They interviewed me about the pyramid and were interested in the fact that all the designs had come from Shamanic ceremony. Good luck with the program guys!
You can see some of the shots they took of Iquitos here. (The pyramid ones start from page 4)
21 May 2008 Scaffold touches 16.3m high! That's over 53 feet. (Front-right of picture, South-West). So well done to Jerry for seeing how this can be done and done safely. I have extended the shift to 10pm for those willing to work and we will be working the next two Saturdays. The race is on to get the iron done before the river exit gap in the right of the background closes. The depth is currently 4.7m, we need around 2.5m. The water is dropping 0.25m per day +- 0.5m, yikes!
Media Machine stirring Two Peruvian television networks have asked to come out to Iquitos within the next couple off weeks for the story. This will bring much needed publicity to the project; much more so than the El Comercio report back in February because it is TV. Hopefully the interest generated will get European and perhaps the American media interested. Tonight I am doing a "Podcast" interview for some American friends
19 May 2008 Raft Complete At last the pyramid's temporary raft is complete. At 40m squared it is quite an achievement. Each of the 100 4m x 4m rafts has 22 balsawood logs. Here we see a collage of photos taken from 16m above...
In a later phase the rafts will be raised 1.5m higher, above the plastic bottles used to generate 1000 tons of lift. Another achievement is that the outside square of the pyramid is now complete. This means the iron can be raised all the way round. At first we are making big 12m triangles of iron. In Phase 5 each of these triangles will be made into 9 smaller triangles completing the iron skeleton of the pyramid. In addition every iron will be coated with Remocaspi wood to add strength and beauty
View of Iquitos From up there the view of Iquitos and the Boulevard is beautiful...
The Plan Today I sat with the workers and explained that the water is going down faster this year. If we get trapped in the Pevas bay which is not very flat then the pyramid could be destroyed. On the other hand, we must complete the welding which relies on the electricity. A big generator would cost a lot of money and there is a 90 day lead time. I explained that we have 2 weeks. In 2 weeks all the iron must be done and we must move the pyramid to the other side of the river to it's permanent position. Every man's objective now is to get the iron done in 2 weeks. The workers accepted the challenge When we have the iron framework in position we have a pyramid. The Golden Ankh, celebration of life, will be raised into position. We will invite the media to this event. At this point we need the story of the pyramid to break back in the UK and hopefully in the States too. The extra traffic to the website will bring the support we need to continue the project in the form of an investor or It is a very risky time in the project. If the water gets too low and we get trapped it could be a disaster. In God we trust
15 May 2008 Oh What a Perfect Day! Looking East from the Pyramid, 5:45am
Group Photo For months the guys have been hassling me to buy them a uniform each - with the pyramid logos on etc. Finally the uniforms arrived - Now when they are moving about in Iquitos people will kno that they work for the Pyramid Project
We have had many people recently asking for jobs on the project once the pyramid is ready. The basic requisites of the crew members are:
Crew Members will be rotated between jobs ranging from waiter service, cleaning rooms, reception, juice bar attendants, kitchen duties, shop attendant, gym helpers, ferrying, porter duties, Internet café duties and more. Crew Members will form a strong team and once fully trained each member will be capable of doing any given job. The crew members will support a staff of more specialised workers ranging from gym instructors, chefs, presenters etc. At the present time we are not ready to take applications for these roles but thanks to those that have been showing an interest in the project and as soon as we start recruiting we will make an announcement on these pages first. (We expect to employ around 50 fulltime people)
14 May 2008 Progress Overview Lower North side Phase 1 ironwork complete. The flags are still flying strong for those that understand
We estimate 2 more weeks to get the lower ironwork complete. Then it's the mid level ironwork which is another 10m up in the air! Personally I still can't see how this is going to be done but the workers keep telling me, Don Julio, no problemo! Today we bought the wood for the scaffold... 8,500 Soles worth, Ouch!
Contortion
Every piece of ironwork is cut to the exact size within millimetres of the drawing. It is then either a case of stretching a gap or closing it to make the iron fit. Above you can see how 13cm more space was found on the Northern side. The vice is welded on and then used to open a gap. The pyramid is exactly 1/6th the size of the Great Pyramid and those fellas worked to an accuracy of +- 9cm. We are therefore working to +-1.5cm to try to match their standard. Sometimes that has meant the workers have had to use a second chance to get it right I have decided that the iron will be continued all the way up to the Apex (Originally the last third was to be wood). My thinking is that this famous, magical, pyramid shape responsible for generating the mysterious energy to grow plants faster, sharpen razor blades etc. will be stronger with the resonance of the iron all the way from bottom to top. It's just a hunch but don't worry because the ugly iron will be covered with Remocaspi wood when finished so it will look stunning all the same
Looking Ahead Below, a quick impression of what is coming...
The race is on to get this all done by mid July because as the water level drops it will be necessary to move the pyramid to the other side of the river. If we remain here the uneven base of the dried lake will destroy the pyramid. Once the welding is done, we go
Super Super Raft Just 2 more rafts to build and we have our 100 rafts - this is very good news considering we have been building them for 6 months now...
Fishing This morning I learnt that before work a couple of the men like to fish around the pyramid. Today they caught a Raya Tiger fish. I'd rather they didn't kill them but they eat them. The fish in the picture is the size of a pancake. Apparently if you brush past one in the water swimming they cut thru you - people are killed by them
Pyramid Heroes Today a very bad fire broke out in our neighbours property called the "Nikoro Bar". In one minute of them all screaming nearly every worker on the pyramid was in there. Over 20 men created a human chain and we carried the water from the river in anything we could. Within a few minutes the fire was out. If the pyramid workers had not have been there so promptly the whole bar and possible some apartments behind would have been gutted. As it is just a few leaves to get put back in the roof. Well done hombres!
12 May 2008 The question of Renewable Energy A major part of the Pyramid Project is not only building an eco-friendly pyramid that becomes self sufficient but two of our ambitious missions are concerned with the long term challenge concerning the consumption of energy. Our Taxi-cab conversion project has as it's objective nothing less than demonstrating to the world by example, here in Peru, that electric vehicles are the way to go in a busy city reducing both air pollution and noise pollution. In addition, the longer term Renewable Energy mission will focus a massive, highly motivated, crack team at the physics and engineering behind the subject and work intensively until solutions are demonstrated that make renewable energy cheaper than fossil fuels. This week we were able to welcome experts in this area to the pyramid and discuss at length the practicality of these ambitions So, on behalf of The Pyramid Project I would like to formally register our appreciation for the support received from Martin and Lucy pictured below. The couple, who run a Texas based company called Agua-Luna, were able to come down to Peru, primarily to support the Pyramid Project, and share with us their expertise in the area of renewable energy. They donated their time to support us and we are very grateful Martin gained experience at Boeing and worked on projects for NASA. He takes a very practical approach and in a few minutes was demonstrating how to extract the hydrogen from the Amazon river water. His partner, Lucy, fluent in Spanish and Physics makes them a pretty solid team to have about, especially in South America
First, when I asked Martin if he thought it was possible to convert a 125cc taxicab to electricity for less than 500 dollars he said that possibly it could be done for 200 dollars and he had no doubt that they would have the same, if not more, power usability than the current vehicles. When an engineer gives you a cost, usually that's just the material cost and so you double it. This means we are still inside the $500. ($500 means that half the 30,000 Iquitos cabs could get converted inside of $7.5m which is the target). He figured on between 2 to 4 batteries for a day's usage. In order to lower the cost still further we might have to consider manufacturing the batteries ourselves in which case they could be engineered to the shape of the petrol tank and possibly have it so that the fluid inside is the thing that gets exchanged at the service station, not the whole battery. A lot of things to think about, but when a NASA engineer gives the thumbs up to an idea that most think is too ambitious to succeed, that is encouraging! Martin and Lucy were able to talk in detail about all aspects of renewable energy but I learnt the most from them about solar panels. One tip I would like to share here is do not use standard car batteries in a solar power system. This is because the nature of the system is to drain/recharge/drain/recharge the batteries rather than them nearly always being fully charged as they are in a car's usage. This kind of solar usage permanently lowers the capacity of the batteries which means after just a month they won't hold much charge and need replacing. Instead you must use "Deep Cycle" batteries that do not mind being fully discharged and recharged regularly. (Golf carts and boats use this type). There were many tips and I point you to their website for further information Martin also convinced me that perhaps using the plastic bottles to float the pyramid could be high maintenance. This is because unless the plastic in the bottles is Grade 1 or 9 which will survive for decades without decomposing, the bottle will deteriorate when exposed to sunlight's UV. We can lower the UV exposure by darkening the area underwater and we may have to do that but even so there are other ways that may be easier. (By the way you can tell the number of the plastic used on a bottle by looking on the base, it is embossed there). I think he said, 4 or 5 is designed to decompose in just a few years. Now we are investigating the use of the giant 55 gallon plastic drums used by various industries to transport liquids - I'll keep you posted! So thanks again, Martin and Lucy
11 May 2008 Happy Mothers Day! Hi Madre, it may not be Mother's Day back home but it is here, so thinking of you and sending love Jxxx
09 May 2008 Visitors Galore! Today we had our fair share of visitors starting in the morning with a big flock of birds (Golondrinas)...
Later on it was a pleasure to welcome our first visitors from the Czech Republic - Honza Svarc and Miroslav Vavra...
If you are coming to Iquitos then please feel free to visit the pyramid - we are receiving some excellent project ideas from our visitors on a daily basis now. Yesterday Hank from Holland, a friend of Arie Taal the Dutch floating island expert, introduced the idea of us using Styrofoam instead of plastic bottles. Another recent idea from our friend Dave Lewis in England is to contain the bottles in water tight plastic bags used to carry liquids by the soda industry. This would mean that the outside space between the bottles may also be displacing water giving us much better lift
Additional With all the weight of iron added on the North East corner we have been adding more buoyancy today. The guys complained that the water was cold and so the management jumped in too. They were right it was cold today!
Wilder having fun! Today the South East corner was finally connected and we'll share photos of this early next week.
08 May 2008 North-East Iron Advancing
So far the iron joints are spot welded. Now, with the electricity raised to "Industrial" standard the welders will be revisiting all the joints to weld them more thouroughly
The canal is advancing too (The walkway is temporary)...
05 May 2008 Topa Arrives The last of the Topa arrived today which means we can finish building the rafts. There are 13 rafts left to build which completes the 100 used to float the pyramid for the first 4 phases of the project. Once the plastic bottles are used to float the pyramid the Topa, which is not just very buoyant but is also a light and strong building material, will be recycled and utilised to hold down the plastic bottles Thanks to Filipe and his family for the work they have done in providing Topa. It takes them 8 days to get the Topa here and they practically live on bananas for the trip! The last of the rafts will go in the South-East corner pictured below
02 May 2008 End of the Week Update The North-East corner now has balsas ready for the scaffold...
The scaffold being built...
The North-East corner being prepared with iron ready for vertical advancement...
The Canal (West). This carpentary is proving difficult, hence slow!
01 May 2008 Day of the Worker Today was a Bank Holiday here in Peru and a celebration of "The Worker". Rather than taking the holiday, the pyramid workers decided to take double time and press on. Thanx guys! Here a local community centre were out on the street celebrating
The centre belongs to Luis Gonzales Polar Zuzunaga, the grey haired man pictured below on the right
The centre produce some beautiful art and concepts. They are associated with martial art, Brazilian style, and the members are very fit. Every Saturday at 8pm they practice the Capoeira, a martial arts dance, on the Boulevard to a crowd of spectators
Pyramid Progress With the holiday it has not been possible to get our Electricity supply upgraded - this will be Monday hopefully. However progress is being made and the view from the Boulevard pictured below shows how Iquitos can see the pyramid progressing
All the main iron beams are now in position on the West side up to a height of 8.147m. Yesterday we bought all the scaffold for the North side and tomorrow this will be built. We are hoping to receive more wood on Saturday so we can finally get the outer square wall completed on the South-East corner, (right of picture). We are also waiting for more balsa wood so we can finish the base
Here you can see the Northern connecting wall being built
Here the "Western Canal", "Boat Entrance" or as it is now being called "The Pyramid's Spine" is being built. (The diagonal woods in the photo are temporary). When the pyramid is floated using plastic bottles this canal will be under water and boats up to 2.33m wide will be able to enter the pyramid's swimming pool. We hope to finish this tomorrow so another photo of this to follow
|
|
|
