Epic adventurer - DIY paracord bungee that should outlast the polar caps

Making a home made paracord* bungee** to take my new and very small Gerber Dime® multi tool on any epic adventures I may set off on turned out to be pretty worth while. Claiming that it will outlast the polar caps probably isn't saying that much.

Oh well.

I wanted to make it so I could use my new little multi tool while it was still attached to my belt so I couldn't lose it overboard, but didn't want it dangling around my ankles when I let it go without re-clipping it. I figured if I wasn't actively using it, I'd clip it to my belt, but when I was using it, I could just it to still be attached. That would mean there was a loop of rope hanging down a foot or so from my belt, and I thought that might be annoying. I have a bungee cord with a hook at each end thats been sitting in water outside in the sun for 3 years and is still in perfect condition, but I have also bought a few dozen that didn't make it 3 months. I have no idea what brand the good one is, but even if I did, it's too think for my requirements.

The invention engine said I should make my own.

I started with some paracord and removed all the inner strands. If they are tight, just pull one out at a time until they come out with ease.

The mess should look something like this when complete.

The next step was to cut a length of inner tube into a strip thin enough to fit inside the hollowed out para cord.

I cut a length around 30cm long, and around 2mm wide

Try to avoid any nicks and rough edges as this is where it will break if stretched too far.

But we wont be stretching our too far so it wont matter.

I then threaded a thin wire through the hollow  length of paracord, bent a loop, and tied the strip of inner tube to it.

I attached to other end of the wire to my house because it was the only heavy thing I could find.

With the help of some pliers to grip the paracord, it was simple to pull the strip of inner tube back through the empty paracord.

I added a decent quality swivel from my fishing gear as an afterthought, but it would have been a lot neater to incorporate it into the knot so it might lie in a straight line to the DIY paracord bungee.

As it is in this pic, I can stretch it to around twice the relaxed length.

In later experiments, I discovered that if you scrunch the length of paracord bungee into a rough ball, then roll it around between your palms as if you were rolling a ball of dough, it gains extra creases and folds. This allows you to untie it, and shorten the length of inner tube inside, and as a result bunch up the paracord.

So now I can get a stretch of around 3 times the relaxed length.

To get maximum stretch, bunch up the paracord until it's still slack when you stretch it. This means the inner tube is the limiting factor. Then let a little paracord slip through your fingers until the inner tube is still fully stretched, but the paracord is also tight.

Tie it off, and you should be set. As long as you didn't stretch the inner tube too much before tying it off, the paracord should take any extreme force that's applied, and your rubber inner should stay intact for the next 25,000 years or so.

All in all this suggestion from the invention engine turned out well.

The short length of very thin and super strong DIY paracord bungee is ideal to suspend my new favorite tool.



120 Things in 20 years - Oh look, a post!



* strong, thin, light, multi strand rope you use to hang from parachutes
** rubbery rope you use to tie things to your roof rack, or tie your ankle to a bridge with when you are about to fling yourself off.

Aquaponics - Yabby farming

I'd really like to be able to grow yabbies for the plate, but they are a little too cannibalistic and need a lot of space.

After a lot of running stuff through the invention engine, I came up with an invention to save people who have fallen through ice.

But that's another story.

The stuff that came out on crustacean farming was a lot more interesting because I don't have the falling through ice thing to worry about where I live, and like eating yabbies.

I think I'll patent the ice thing after a little development.

In the mean time I think there's a way to grow a lot more yabbies in a lot less space.

In the past I mentioned a few ways this might be achievable based on some observations, and one was that if food came to the yabby, it would sit in it's hole all day and wait.

A yabby waiting in it's hole all day hardly ever eats another yabby also waiting in it's hole. The result is yabby utopia.

They would be free to move around if they felt like it, but wouldn't do quite so much of it.

Much more like cows in a rich pasture full of 20cm high green grass rather than a hen in a 30cm cube cage.

Or at least that's what I think.

So here's what you do...

You create a shallow tank that holds PVC tubes slightly longer than the crustacean and wide enough so that they feel safe and perhaps set at 45 degrees or vertical, or whatever it turns out yabbies like.

Not too wide. 12mm black poly pipe for new borns, 18mm black poly for when they are around 2cm-6cm, then thin PVC until maturity would be a guess. Actually thicker poly irrigation would probably cost less.

You set them in a gravel/scoria/clay ball media making sure there is a few feet thick of the stuff under the PVC tubes.

The more tubes you want to set per square area, the more depth of media you need. 500L of media can support around 12kg of life. (depending on how much you feed it)

Put something under the media or run a stack of PVC pipes with slots cut in them so you can collect water from all over the bottom.

Add a pump to collect water from the bottom. An air lift would be better because it's a zero head lift and they run at a tiny percentage of the cost of a water pump.

Next you add enough water so that your tubes are covered by only about 4cm of water, plus half the length of your crustaceans at the stage of life they happen to be. Adjust as required, but this can be pretty vague.

You fill the tank with duckweed and pump so it draws water from the bottom of the media and expels it above the media pointed in such a direction as to set up a gentle movement all through the tank.

A round tank would probably be best, but square would work.

Add yabbies.

The yabbies sit in their holes.

The duckweed's 3-4cm roots float past.

The yabby grabs one, pulls it down and eats it.

The yabby grows. And excretes stuff that is either ammonia, or becomes ammonia.

I eat the yabby.

Duckweed can eat ammonia directly which is probably why it can choke rivers and lakes so brilliantly.

Duckweed has crazy mad Fu.

Most plants require bacteria to turn the ammonia into nitrites, then another bacteria to turn the nitrites into nitrates which the plants then consume.

When a plant can eat ammonia, it will always get first crack at the available nutrient. It also floats so it causes a blanket of shade at all the plants that live underwater. So duckweed gets the double advantage of all the sunlight, and all the nutrient.

The tank would definitely need a glass lid because yabbies love to escape, and a glasshouse would make both the yabbies and the duckweed grow well.

You would need to supplement the nutrient by adding duckweed from another source if you had a lot of yabbies, or adding some peas or brussels sprouts or something. Yabbies eat everything.

Well...

That's it.

I'm pretty sure it will work.