Rock the Kite: Evolution of AWEfest

Shortly before Wubbo Ockels died, he conceived of giant AWE-themed AWE-powered festival events, as a social movement to advance adoption. AWEfest became the working name in our circle.

Of course Wubbo’s AWEfest idea still has a long way to go. It will progressively take hold at all kite festivals, as well as eco-festivals. Even after AWE fully succeeds as a technology, AWEfest may endure as a major global celebration.

Wubbo Lives!

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Defining early AWEfest progress as public fun events that involve AWE, with audiences large and small. AWEfest as a mega-event will be built on starting cases like these-

  • KiteMotor1 excited audiences at the 1st West Coast Climate Convergence and Washington State International Kite Festival in 2007. WSKIF has had many AWE demos since, up to the present (Dylan Nguyen).
  • kPower took up Wubbo’s AWEfest idea at kFarm, in 2012, using AWE to briefly power a 12V electric guitar.
  • PierreB demoed his flygen at Dieppe Kite Festival
  • On the Texas Coast, two Ambient Camping music events featured kPower AWE.
  • Austin’s legendary kite festival has featured kPower AWE for many years now, in the center field, with audiences of thousands.
  • Enerkite threw a waffle-party at Tempelhof, as part of AWEC 2013. kPower’s KiteSat also flew, and charged a radio.
  • A Kiwee prototype powered music at a party in rural Spain in 2018.
  • KitePower and Roosegaarde hosted and AWE themed night event in 2018.

A festival usually means gathering a lot if different people, who probably don’t care if the power is generated by AWE, a HAWT, a diesel generator etc. So while you might use AWE, people will not appreciate it.

If the gathering is AWE specific, and the people are into AWE, using AWE power is a fun gimmick.

Tallak, its just not as black-and-white as AWEfest or no-AWEfest. Early AWE at kite festivals and similar cases are true dress-rehearsals for the event Wubbo envisioned.

Certainly at WSIKF or Austin’s Kite Festival, when AWE has center-stage and is promoted over the loud-speaker system, with cheering audiences, those moments are meaningful progress toward what Wubbo proposed.

Enerkite threw a waffle-party at Tempelhof, as part of AWEC (not 2017)
Tempelhof was 2013… see
https://www.awec2019.com/book-of-abstracts-series
Tasty waffles they were too. Thanks to Guido and Enerkite for organisation.

Correction noted. Everyone’s paleo-AWEfest items or details invited.

Glad you mentioned Paleo-kite.
There’s a collection of monoliths on the Isle of Lewis… The Calanish Stones

Been there for like 7000+ years.
Check out the distribution pattern.
A splayed channel cross aligned with the longest channel to the prevailing wind.
A central ring. And a chamber.
This thing is a kite anchor field with a central power take off and was definitely used as such to grind food.
Bloody calendar … Why would any self respecting paleo dude want a calendar…?
Their ropes sucked. Their kite networks probably bust too often. Probably too dangerous with all that energy too. Suppose you could re-adapt it as a calendar but … No point … It’s an anchor field.
Mid winter in a week… Drat I’ll be away… was looking forward to dancing around it in the buff too.

Will local UK authorities approve kites anchored from the stones? If not, someone could come from Texas to tie them on anyway :smiley:

There are large open spaces around many of these sites where AWEfest could happen. Fallen stones could even be raised again, just as KiteShip raised a concrete monolith with a kite. The crowd would go wild.

Texans don’t have universal authority.
You might well gather a crowd. An angry mob is not so conducive to progress.
Even using the stone circles which are still buried under millennia of growth… Not a plan.
Would you use a museum piece aircraft for chartering a transatlantic flight?

Kite festival crowds are never angry, as a rule. AWE makes them happy. AWEwareness grows, like this years local press. Wubbo-the-astronaut was right about the idea.

It seemed you liked the idea of megalith kite anchors in a festive context. By coincidence, I have erected many megaliths around Austin (with cranes), and grew up around countless working antique airplanes as well. As a kid, I even got to touch the actual Wright Flyer at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum. At the World Kite Museum, as curator, I actually did fly quite a few old historic kites, very carefully, out of scientific curiosity, if no else would.

Checking out a Scottish jail for restoring a massive fallen Celtic megalith, with giant kites, is Texas-cool. Our Scots are more noted intolerant “Klan” culture that the Scottish Enlightenment (v. our Germans as exiled 1848 Freethinkers), that could be in the statement to your court. You could testify for a life sentence nearby, with AWE work-release :slight_smile:

I’d pay to see a serving US president of Scottish German descent jailed.
His mum was from Isle of Lewis.

This is the current JAL kit for flying kite media, building on kPower’s AWEfest efforts over the years. As previously reported, there have been numerous small demos, including some well attended general events (Kite Festivals, Ambient Camping, Tempelhof), where kPower AWE media has been a nice sideshow.

Due to restrictive New Forum Moderation, very little JAL content is being shared in recent years, just enough to show there is a lot going on, that doubters seem convinced does not exist. AWEfest 2022 is shown here in winter solstice seasonal preparation, about to happen once again (at a local park holiday fair) each time a bit bigger and better.

Here you see the hardware basics- RGB light-strips and spotlights, video projector, cloth projection screen, 9m2 (or 22m2) lifter kite, sky cameras, small speaker, and media/power cables, as the flying elements. Batteries and power electronics stay on the ground. Primary battery gets trickle-charged beforehand by various AWES (like KiteSat series), to then power the multi-media from both storage and active event charging.

Go ahead and laugh, but it’s a fair effort to showcase AWE in actual practice, at small scale.

Wubbo Lives!

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Sounds like a fun small scale experiment
Well done
Keep us posted with results

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I’m sorry to have to say, this is getting really tiring. Another photo of a pile of stuff on the ground, accompanied by bragging about future accomplishments, more insinuation that the AWE-powered-concert-that-never-happened of a decade ago not only took place, but continues to this day, which it did not and does not. The one thing that is missing from the circular firing squad camp is any actual AWE activity with significant electric power output. Rather than showing a photo of items that use power laying on the ground, AWE requires items that produce power, in the sky.