Still Here

Post date: Apr 27, 2010 2:09:24 AM

Not much development for KiteBot since the launch, but I've recently cleared my project plate a bit.

Others are making some great progress. I've been watching WindLift for a while, and this post has some interesting information. Of the dozens of projects out there, WindLift one looks to be maybe the closest to KiteBot in design and intention, particularly in starting relatively simple. Unlike KiteBot, WindLift has made amazing progress recently, and secured some impressive funding. I'd venture to reason that the investment interest, and taking on the challenge of automated operation go hand in hand. This is to say, to be interested in this endeavor from an investment prospective necessitates addressing automated operation. My hope is that an implementation can be realized with relatively trivial up front investment that will change the landscape of how kite energy is being considered.

But then, maybe I'm totally wrong....I haven't managed to model the D/R planetary, and this is still the biggest unknown. At the same time, I do have a gut feel that it, and the rest of the system, would work, and be build-able for cheap with no great feats of fabrication. If this is true, it would, AFAICT, be unprecedented, at least for some definitions of "work", "cheap", and "great feat".