This is probably the most disastrous experience that Studio L.I.M. has had so far! We learnt that even a tiny breeze (we purposefully moved to the sheltered car park, not only for fire safety reasons but also for protection from the wind) can really affect the way the lantern blows and the difficulty in getting a flame to start. We found that paraffin burns very effectively once going, but that it is quite difficult to start it off. Our lantern did fly briefly, although as demonstrated in the video it quickly got out of hand as a sudden gust of wind blew the lantern sideways (into me!) We were very happy that we had decided to tie a string to it before lighting the paraffin, as not doing this would have been very dangerous as it would have flown away and possibly set something else alight. We have learnt that as the lantern currently is, it needs to be lit under very controlled conditions, on a completely calm day. Safety first! Here are some photos of our experience:
We had some volunteers from other teams helping us. We'd like to thank them for this.
The victim: there's now a hole in my skirt where a bit of ash fell on it! Thank goodness it wasn't anything more!
The culprit: our sadly burnt out lantern. Fortunately, on the advice of our tutors earlier in the day, we bought more than one so have spares sitting in our lockers for later attempts.
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