Bubble Ballista

Erin asked me to make plaything for kids for the opening of the Durham Farmers market. The only thoughts I had on the subject were to fuse bubbles with a Roman siege engine. After the requisite quest for parts, where I met a Dutch woman who was a Nia black belt who gave me a pool and a little girls bike, I got crackin.

The Bubble Balista in the back yard. No bubble test was had due to time constraints. I was working without a net. But the idea was I could reach down to the pool and gracefully spread an arc of bubbles into the sky.

After a hilarious voyage with the Bubble Ballistic across town I set up at the Market. 1# Problem: No hose as was promised. No water, a key element in bubbles. The children pathetically gathered around the hot, empty pool. They knew this was for them, it looked cool, but why does it suck so?
After running around Central Park trying to get water, I was sinking into failure. People offered to do a bucket brigade, but I didn't want make people. Then Chris from Fulsteam provided the needed energy. He had trash cans on rollers. We could fill up 50 Gallons at a time and roll them from the Farmer's Market. We started to do this and filled the pool to the thrilled children. With a huge audience and a expectant crowd, I theatrically had the children ask the bubble fairy to grant us bubbles then poured in the soap and glycerin. I had the kids slowly stir the mixture in. Slow means fast to kids. The water got pretty agitated as well as dirty. (dirty dirty children!)Matt came by and called me Mr. Bubble, but I would only answer to the name of Dr. Bubble. I made many agonizing attempts to draw large beautiful bubbles into the sky. Bubble skin formed over the array of hoops, but ultimately only succeeded in making one small bubble. I tried more theatrics to cover the art and engineering failures. Why had the bubble fairy abandoned us!!!?There were collective releases of baited breath as another bubble popped before its time. Too many parents had too many unhelpful suggestions. I took one really bad one so I could stop making half baked bubbles: agitate the water. The kids did this to great aplomb. I gave the ok for them to dive in and play and many Durham kids received their first good bath in weeks. (dirty dirty children)

Dirty Dirty children! The bubble balista was a great example of spectacular failure. It created a challenge for heros to solve (Chris -water), opportunities for kind gifts (Nia blackbelt), collective sanitation, collective suspense, urban mythology (bubble fairy, Dr. Bubble and unprogrammed fun. Go Durham! Give me more assignments like this.