(non-)Fiery Disaster Strikes!

When we last saw our heroes, they were overseeing the Mirror Blaze and watching Marc demonstrate FaIRE Hockey to unsuspecting passers-by.

Little did they know that a (non-)Fiery disaster was about to strike!

It was a normal evening in the Charnival, passers-by were being drawn into the Mirror Blaze:

And being correctly awed and surprised by the *FOOM*:

A nice quiet night of *FOOM* ski ball:

Then, an innocuous moving of the battery box[1] caused a disaster!:

Mirror Blaze was no longer blazing! Even worse, it was, but only very intermittently! With the line mounting, our intrepid hero delved into the box of wire to debug the problem:

Luckily, he had a (very easy to see) multimeter to debug with:

After much gnashing of teeth[2] and many false starts, all connections were tested, the wires were reattached, and *FOOM* order was restored!:

[1]This is a classic example of making an early temporary design decision, then forgetting about it all the way through the rest of the build process. The solenoids that we procured were 12V solenoids, so we obtained a large red light-up button to act as the dead man switch, and two 6V batteries (hooked up in series with 120V-rated wire). This was then all wired together with spit and baling wire[3]. No wonder when moved it became intermittent!

[2]I think this was probably my most stressful (and fun in retrospect!) debugging. On the top of a lifeguard stand, about 10 feet in the air, low light, with fire erupting around you, with a crowd getting more antsy by the minute. And intermittent connections are the worst!

[3]And alligator clips!