Eventually, the DemoUnits are not about its connecting sticks, bamboo won't wring your message across. No, it is about being able to show your message high up above the crowd. Specially TV-crews will notice and that's the best coverage your message ever can get. Go for the higher the better.
What is the limit? Not the weight of the towers. Weight is little, to balance it properly you find out while doing it. When found how to balance, then next is to create funny swaying movements with the towers, actually dancing with them. But wind is an other story. Wind matters and has to be taken seriously. There are many ways to move on with the demo, even if the wind gets strong.
Four units high with the long, 2.1 meter sticks makes that the top of the tower is 10 meter above ground level. Signs then are about 9 meter high up.
In practice we feel 4 units high is beautiful, but too much. As always we work with first-comers, people enthusiastic but without experience. Better take no risk and start with towers of 3 units high. That's what we did in the marches in London and Berlin.
Do not cancel your presentation when hard wind is forecasted. With one unit only, carried by three people on the shoulders any wind force can be handled.
When the wind is less then expected, just add a unit and find out if it works well. If not, just take it off again. That takes only a few minutes and you can tie the sticks and wires with rubbers strips to the one tower being carried along.
This was a Micro workshop, programmed last minute in the 2Dh5-festival in Maastricht last Sunday, Feb 21, 2016. The workshop had to be 'Micro' as I could not take along the bigger demonstration materials, if fact the DemoUnits tower elements themselves. By far too big, thus I went 'Micro' in a 1 to 3 scale reduction. Not many people attended. But two of them had plenty previous experience with DemoUnits and they valued what I cold show them in regard of making banners that are more wind-frienly
The banner strips, the green material is mesh. Originally meant for protecting agains falling stones and tools from scaffoldings, it has three very welcome properties: big pores, wind can pass through somehow. Then it comes in bright attention asking colors. And it is very cheap material.
Orange colored is the tarp, already cut into a size proper for cutting the charcers from. Mesh and tarp is both made of plastic and can be melted together. That is done with an iron meant for ironing cloth.
Best now to first show how the way the banners can be attached to the bamboo frame. Plan what is best for the text to be shown. Text has to be big, therefore has also to be very short. Short powerful text is difficult to write! Find out how many characters fit on a strip. Then think of the possible positions of the banner strip: horizontal, vertical and cross wise. Bannerstrips can also be wrap around the tower. When people that carry the tower let it rotate, then a lot more text can be shown to the public and to the TV-camera's.
Banner strips are attached to the bamboo with clips cut from water pipe in a special way.
Time now to cut banners to the size that goes with the banner slogan lettering. The with of the banner is the same as the height of the characters. This is best for visibility, and crucial to reduce wind load to as little as possible.
It is practical to cut a standard rectangle piece of tarp that later can be modeled into all the characters needed. Only the W and the M need a wider rectangle.
Activism should also be a bit fun! Anyway that what's always happens that lettering is made in a creative way. Find out if readability is still good. No problem to change if a certain type of text does not come out right.
Just try again, learn from doing, it goes swift, there is no cost-concern. So just make it to your liking, good chance the public will like it too!