Slight modifications to the Monkey Hut?

[develdevil]

I want to built a monkey hut: http://www.chromatest.net/Lovemonkey/

The only problem is that the car I will be driving does not have space for the 10' poles. The question is, how do I make this work?

One solution is to divide the ribs into 5' sections. This requires an extra joint for each rib and also reduces the flexibility of each rib as well. So, the question I have is: will the ribs still be flexible enough?

If splitting the ribs into two sections doesn't compromise the flexibility enough, then there is the opportunity to add additional spines along the new joints, making the entire structure even more stable. Or, would it throw off some other measurement I am not aware of?

Thanks.

[Drawingablank]

Last year we cut our hut ribs to 5 foot and used a sleeve over the joint that was 18 inches long. Don't forget to put a screw at the center point of the sleeve to prevent it sliding down the rib.

We had no issues with this setup and did bring spares of all the pieces just in case. Of course the winds were quite mild last year so it wasn't really a full test of the design.

[Jackass]

Tie them in a bundle, wrap the center section with a towel or blanket, and secure firmly to the roof of your vehicle. Just like that, you get to flaunt your overloaded burner status.

[ender]

Actually, I've done this with a lot shorter sleeves. I ran a test one several years ago, and sleeves up to 4" worked. I felt much better with the 6" sleeves however. And I don't think 8" is over-dramatic. 18" OTOH...

Remember, tension should be holding this together, it's a tensegrity structure.

One issue you may have is properly drilling the holes, so that your sleeves match any of your poles, instead of matching specific pole holes. If I were doing it again, I'd probably set up some type of jig.

I used top-rounded threaded bolts, so it didn't fuck up the tarp when the wind moved things around, and wing-nuts, so that you can hand-tighten, and disassemble if needed, without looking for tools.

This does put some bits on the inside of your monkey hut which will catch on things.

In other monkeyhut news, this year I saw a pre-fab metal carport type monkey hut. Much taller than a standard monkeyhut (for us tall boys), and pretty nice.

[Bob]

I don't think structures which rely on anchorage to the ground are considered tensegrity structures.

[MyDearFriend]

Why do we have to re-invent the wheel every year? This has been completely covered on this board many times.

YES you can cut the 10 foot legs in half. As DAB says, you need to join them with sleeves. I use 2.5 foot lengths of 1 1/4" PVC (Sched 40) to join the 5 foot lengths of 1" PVC. I drill a hole through the middle of each connecting piece and put a 3" eye bolt through, to stop the leg pieces from sliding and to make an attachment point for stuff (clothesline, flashlight etc). Tape as per Lovemonkey's instructions. I have made 4 monkey huts this way and they are all sturdy shelters.

[Noboundaries]

Always interesting to read how folks modify the MH design. I was no exception. I cut my sections in half too. My former structural engineering background helped me understand that you take the two and one half foot sleeve (30") that the original design had at the top, and cut it in three 10" sleeve sections to give basically the same structural integrity across the same distance. Instead of using screws to keep the sleeves from sliding down the pole, I wrapped 200 degree Scotch Extreme Duct tape around each pole section 5" from the ends, building up about a 3/16" to 1/4" stop that the sleeve would rest against. 5" of each rib pole slid easily into half of the 10" sleeve. On the sleeve I put enough of the same duct tape in the middle so that the X or T joint fit snuggly on the sleeve right in the middle. By doing so it made construction of the MH a breeze (two hours in the dark and in no hurry at all) binding everything together with 48" bungees.

We tested our design in gale force winds on an empty playa on July 6th this past year. The joints held up beautifully. Our tarp anchors failed though in the wind, causing the tarp to sail, pulling the frame off the rebar and collapsing the MH. We changed our anchor system, used 5/8" rebar instead of 1/2", and anchored the frame to the ground too, separate from the tarp. If the frame had not been pulled off the rebar in July when the tarp sailed we would have been fine in the gale force winds. Anchoring the frame to the ground separately from the tarp would have prevented that from happening.

2012 Burning Man (36).JPG

[Drawingablank]

Update, the pieced hut design I mentioned above also held up well in this years winds. I did see a hut made with shorter connection pieces (about 6" long) fail in several places.