Skyaak. Throw'n'Catch Excitement!

About twenty years ago a good friend of mine showed me a beguiling little paper airplane unlike anything I had ever seen.

It was just a drinking straw with two closed loops of paper stuck on each end. There was a wad of chewing gum jammed into the front as a ballast.

It looked very strange but most of all it worked!

He tossed it to me and I realized in an instant that this was something very special. When I in turn tossed it back to him, I was smitten.

You might say it was "love at first flight"!

Little did I realize that all these years later I would still be as fascinated as ever, perhaps more so!

A short while after my first brush with the ring-wing glider, I moved on from Halifax (where I was living at the time) to a job with an architectural firm in Montreal where I worked as an apprentice to a Liturgical Designer/Architect.

This was before the days of Computer Assisted Drafting so we drew everything by hand.

As my drafting skills developed and I grew more confident, I decided to commit the ideas that were forming in my head about the ring-wing glider design to paper.

I wanted to improve the basic concept...to situate the shaft at the exact center of the rings instead of just stick it on the surface.

I was thinking about both the aesthetic and function. There was a certain elegance (I thought) to having the shaft located right at the center. And it just seemed to look better.

I started tinkering with the idea of building prototypes soon after I put the ideas down on paper.

My first few attempts were fairly rough, no surprise there.

The important thing was to keep the momentum going and to build, build, build!

I am a 'hand's-on' developer so for me it was the only way to go.

Now that I think about it, the main reason I wanted to start with a drawing was to get it out of my head and down on paper. But that was only a first baby step.

Now, the challenge was to work it out in three dimensions so I could actually toss my experimental units around to watch how they performed in time and space.

Once I started building (slightly) more sophisticated prototypes, I was mindful to photograph the results so I would have them as a reference later on, as the project went ahead.

You can see by now that I had worked out the basic idea.

But there was still a long way to go.

Over the years I had contented myself with using plastic containers (as in margarine, yogurt, etc.) to make the ring-wings out of. It was a lot of work and a rather in-exact way of doing it...but -what can I say- I didn't know any better!

As a sidebar, I had made a few inquiries with some local manufacturers about producing the model as a three-dimensional object and learned that it would be really expensive to create the molds required to proceed.

Hmm. had to put my thinking cap back on for that one!

After some mental incubation of this conundrum, I hit on the idea of 'flat manufacturing' the wing and dove into the design specifications at my drafting table.

This innovation proved to be the big breakthrough...the "aha!" moment that I was waiting for!

Suddenly, the whole world opened up. Not only was the technology in place to support this new idea, it was relatively affordable. Certainly within my reach.

I seized the moment and contracted with a local manufacturer to create the first 'flat manufactured' Skyaak ring-wing! This was a critical step forward that would lead to many more innovations in rapid succession.

'Even Evan' Reiffershied set to SMOKE IT!

I've been working out with a guy named Evan Reiffersheid here who has proven to be an exceptionally great Skyaak enthusiast. I have been quizzing him quite extensively and here is what I am finding out.

More accurately, he is simply confirming what I already know after all my experience with Skyaak.

Evan says, first of all, that he was easily able to figure out ALL BY HIMSELF five or six different throwing techniques for the Skyaak. This is thanks to the fact that he has a background in sports and is keenly interested in the skill set that enables him to excel with his Skyaak.

He went on to say that he loves Skyaak (he rates it above Frisbee for excitement) for many reasons. He claims that the Skyaak is valuable, stimulating and exciting to him because it functions as a TRAINER in these areas:

1) ambidextrous work-out
2) reflex builder
3) agility trainer
4) hand-to-eye coordination
5) muscle memory builder

This is an impressive list, and all of these areas get a solid, useful work-out whether you're conscious of it or not. Evan also says that since he has independently developed five distinctly different throwing techniques, he finds the Skyaak to have long-lasting appeal.

In fact, he says Skyaak has become one of his favorite leisure-time activities!

On a scale of 1-10, Evan rates Skyaak at a 8.5 or higher for overall excitement, interest, and training benefit.

Once I had the basic elements in place...for the sake of brevity I will not go into all the details here...I decided to contract a local video artist/technician/fellow model aircraft freak to make a Skyaak demo video.

I wanted to show what I had come up with for packaging the unit for shipping (a LOT of thought and design went into this!) the glue-free assembly and most of all, Skyaak in flight!

It's pretty much impossible to imagine what a flying model looks like in flight without seeing it...airborne!

Let the fun and games begin!

The Demo Video was only the beginning...I went on to make some of my own and now the idea is catching on. The latest video, for example, came to me by way of a good friend in Oakland California. He sent along a video that shows an advanced (call it a twenty-first century model!) prototype flying in the night skies over Berkeley Campus! Check it out below...titled "Skyaak Night Model".

FYI, here's what my friend had to say about his Skyaak experience: "Here's a little bit of night flight with my new Skyaak Model 3 with the light kit. Flight is great, but more than that,, this thing looks great at night and was surprisingly easy to catch (especially for people that had never thrown a Skyaak before)."

My friend Brendan O'Keefe strikes a heroic pose with his Skyaak Model 3 aiming at the Melbourne sky-line.

I used to think that I was pretty far removed from the action of the great big world living here in Western Canada, but since the world is steadily shrinking thanks to communication and information-sharing advances this is really no longer an issue.

A case in point would be the video above called "Skyaak Night Model" that shows the Skyaak Model 3 Ultra-Glow flying around over Berkeley Campus! Now if that's not getting out there into the slipstream, I don't know what is.

As a professional artist/entrepreneur I am enjoying a life 'off the grid', meaning I get to spend time devoted to the things I feel passionate about. Sure, I have to do the daily grind to earn the money I need to pursue my interests, just like everybody else. But I also get to spend substantial chunks of time dedicated to 'following my muse'.

Which is pretty wrapped up in the Skyaak project.

When pressed to come up with a number one reason for spending all this time and energy on the Skyaak project I say this: I get a great big buzz out of creating an object that I can toss into the air and watch as it takes on a life of its own in flight!

There's something in my lizard brain that gets a wicked rush from the idea that I am in the process of developing a flight methodology, a design configuration that actually works. There is a visceral thrill to the notion that I have nurtured this concept over the years from its crude infancy to the rather advanced form that you see flying around over Berkeley Campus above!

More than this, I'm looking forward to all of the future advancements yet to come. I have lots of ideas in the wings for more sophisticated models that will keep me busy for years to come.

With all the amazing advances in materials, replication technology and IT, I feel like I have access to a steadily expanding tool-box that will never exhaust itself of creative potential.

What more can I ask for?

Skyaak developer Dylan Cooke shows on/off switch at rear of Skyaak Ultra-Glow experimental unit.

The Skyaak project is an endless source of inspiration for me and my team.

At the moment we are working on several new ideas, some of which include the Skyaak DIY deuce and the Skyaak Ultra-Glow.

The DIY deuce is a really cool new concept that converts your PC into a 'Skyaak Vending Machine'! Huh? It's a download-able version that you can print on 2 sheets of standard 8.5 x 11" paper, laminate, decorate, cut out build and fly for just two bucks. We want to get the design into peoples' hands without any financial barrier and this popular unit is starting to sell world-wide as we speak.

The Skyaak Ultra-Glow is a souped-up Model 3 that features an on-board led (light-emitting-diode) array that makes it an exciting option for night-time play.

You can see an early prototype in action here when you view the video from Berkeley California called "Skyaak Night Model".

This prototype is still in the final stages of development. Our goal is to create a completely 'green' version.

Drop in to say 'hello', leave a comment here or at the official Skyaak blog

Find the blog at http://www.skyaak.com/skyaak-rd-blog

Thanks and hope to hear from you sometime soon!

It was very cool to hear from Genieveve Paradis, Features Producer for the popular Montreal-based TV show "Le Banc d'Essai du Peuple" or "Taking it to the People" in the fall of 2007.

Ms. Paradis expressed an interest in featuring Skyaak on an upcoming special that was to highlight some of their favorite products from NewdaVincis.

Considering that NewdaVincis currently hosts about 630 different products and the producer selected just 6 out of all those, I take it as quite a compliment that Skyaak made the cut!

The show went to air for the first time in January '09 and will rotate throughout this spring and summer.

My grasp of the french language is a tad spotty, anyone who can help me out with some translation would be greatly appreciated.

Judging by the 'body language' and overall enthusiasm here, I would wager a guess that Skyaak was quite well-received on the cosmopolitan streets of Montreal.

It's worth clicking through to watch this. It's kind of priceless really. Check out peoples' candid reactions to Host Mathieu Gratton takes Skyaak to the streets of Montreal and how excited the little canine participant is to encounter his very first Skyaak.

My spider senses are tingling...could this be a message that we should be looking at R&D into the Skyaak 'fetch'...?

You can copy and paste this link http://skyaak.com/2009/01/17/tv-feed-of-skyaak-debut-in-from-z-tele/ into your browser to watch this entertaining clip en francais!