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Ice rafts not sails: Floating the rocks at Racetrack Playa, Paper by Ralph Lorenz et. al.
ngunn
post Dec 29 2010, 06:04 PM
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Thanks once again to Jason B for making this intriguing paper accessible to all: http://barnesos.net/publications/papers/20...track.Rafts.pdf
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nprev
post Dec 31 2010, 01:48 AM
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Real blue-sky suggestion here, but would putting little RFID tags on the roving rocks be at all useful? What I'm thinking here is some way to obtain motion measurements (and, ideally, the rate of motion) without continuous human observation. If you had two RFID receivers plus recording and/or a remote telemetry hookup, presumably you could track 2D motion of the rocks 24/7/365.

Downsides:

1. This don't sound cheap (but there might be el cheapo ways to do it. I'm aware of the technology, just not conversant in it, but I do know that there's considerable commercial interest & concurrent development ongoing for logistics applications.)
2. Adding mass to the rocks might affect their behavior, even though this might be as little as a gram.
3. You might need more electrical power than I realize to keep an RFID interrogator running continuously, and it could be a royal (and expensive) pain to do fixes, maintenance, etc.



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ZLD
post Dec 31 2010, 04:59 PM
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QUOTE (nprev @ Dec 31 2010, 01:48 AM) *
Real blue-sky suggestion here, but would putting little RFID tags on the roving rocks be at all useful?


The issue I would see with RFID is that you would have to triangulate the position to track the motion. I'm not sure how far the stones have gone in a single move but if it is significant enough, it can make it difficult to get a good read on the tags. Usually the range is maxed out at around 9 meters, 20 if you use a parabolic dish on the reader. I would suggest using a micro three axis accelerometer (found commonly in smartphones) with a really small FM transmitter to transmit the output.


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- ngunn   Ice rafts not sails: Floating the rocks at Racetrack Playa   Dec 29 2010, 06:04 PM
- - ElkGroveDan   Fascinating paper Ralph. This is one of my favori...   Dec 29 2010, 06:18 PM
- - djellison   I must get up there and Gigapan the place. It...   Dec 29 2010, 07:11 PM
- - ElkGroveDan   I suppose others have already thought of solar pow...   Dec 29 2010, 07:14 PM
|- - rlorenz   QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Dec 29 2010, 02:14 P...   Dec 29 2010, 10:44 PM
|- - ElkGroveDan   Reading your paper Ralph it looks like the occurre...   Dec 30 2010, 12:21 AM
|- - rlorenz   QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Dec 29 2010, 07:21 P...   Dec 30 2010, 01:22 PM
|- - rlorenz   QUOTE (ElkGroveDan @ Dec 29 2010, 07:21 P...   Jan 12 2012, 05:10 AM
- - PDP8E   Ralph, Thank you for that fascinating paper! ...   Dec 30 2010, 08:29 PM
- - nprev   Real blue-sky suggestion here, but would putting l...   Dec 31 2010, 01:48 AM
|- - Juramike   QUOTE (nprev @ Dec 30 2010, 08:48 PM) rem...   Dec 31 2010, 01:43 PM
|- - rlorenz   QUOTE (nprev @ Dec 30 2010, 08:48 PM) Rea...   Dec 31 2010, 01:50 PM
|- - ZLD   QUOTE (nprev @ Dec 31 2010, 01:48 AM) Rea...   Dec 31 2010, 04:59 PM
- - Julius   i've just seen a programme on weird or what...   Dec 31 2010, 09:30 AM
- - nprev   Hmm. Got it, Ralph. Well, let's see: How abou...   Jan 1 2011, 09:44 PM
- - djellison   QUOTE (ZLD @ Dec 31 2010, 08:59 AM) I wou...   Jan 2 2011, 01:44 AM
- - ZLD   If that is out, then so is just about every other ...   Jan 2 2011, 09:09 AM
- - Floyd   Ralph, very nice paper. My niece works for the Na...   Jan 20 2011, 02:29 PM
- - Floyd   Well the rocks move slowly so it took a few years ...   Aug 27 2014, 10:28 PM
|- - rlorenz   QUOTE (Floyd @ Aug 27 2014, 06:28 PM) Wel...   Sep 1 2014, 12:05 AM
- - nprev   I remember first reading about this in 1973, and o...   Aug 28 2014, 04:19 AM


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