My officemate Russ and I are huge nerds. Therefore, when we dreamed up the idea of constructing a cube of goPro cameras, then lowering said cube from a tall bridge on a climbing rope, this was an entirely typical lunchhour conversation.

In fact, we’d been iterating on the topic of goPro cubes for about a month now. This project was simply the natural next step after the previous week’s underwater goPro cube held together with duct tape.

My main design concern was being absolutely sure there was a 0% chance of any of my cameras falling. Duct tape might have been good enough for playing around in the UBC pool, but this time we needed something more serious.

Therefore, the first step was to replace the duct tape with industrial strength velcro. According to the package, each strip is capable of holding up to eight pounds – and we used two per camera (to be more precise, we used two per camera case – the cameras are not attached directly).

One unforeseen consequence of this design decision is that it became exceedingly difficult to detach any of the cases. To compensate for this, we tried to arrange them so that they can be opened and closed while still attached to the cube.

Although it was nearly physically impossible for me to remove any of the cameras by hand, I wasn’t convinced they wouldn’t somehow spontaneously detach in midair, tossing my expensive equipment to the earth below (and possibly taking out a hapless kayaker). I insisted on additional safety measures. Taking a page out of his rock climbing days, Russ suggested that we additionally run six separate safety lines connecting each of the goPro cases to the main rope.

I bought 55 meters of 3mm climbing rope from Mountain Equipment Co-op (even at this thickness, the rope is capable of holding up 300 pounds). 50 for the main line, plus 5 meters of spare rope to make the safety lines.

After buying the rope, Russ and I put the rig together the following Tuesday while eating lunch at Subway. The result, after attaching all cameras and tying down the various ropes with twist-ties, is surprisingly uncluttered. At the very least, there is little to no rope in any of the cameras field of view, which is what matters.

The following day we tested our rig on the Cambie street bridge. Tying one end of the rope to the railing and feeding the other through Russ’s climbing harness, we tried to attract as little attention as possible while casually lowering my cameras over the railing and down to the river below. Although we hoped to get it right to the river bottom, we discovered that the rig floats (a non-floating alternative is already in progress).

For the most part no one paid us any heed, except one guy on a motorcycle who stopped to watch us.

However, my true objective was the famous Lions Gate Suspension Bridge in North Van, which came with a correspondingly greater risk of attention. Over a hundred meters tall and running over a major shipping lane, there was a very real danger that passerby’s might misunderstand our intentions. Russ’s wife said as much and didn’t want him to go.

With Russ unable to attend, I collected two of my friends who don’t have girlfriends and drove to Stanley park to get ready for the main event.

We had just finished coiling the rope (hidden inside a shopping bag for discretion), when I noticed a large ship approaching. We wouldn’t make it unless we ran.

Sprinting to the bridge, we had just enough time to get the rig over the railing before the freighter arrived, by luck passing directly beneath us. It was absolutely massive and so close that we were actually worried about hitting the command tower – we didn’t dare let the rope out all the way until it had passed.

After trying a variety of projection methods, we decided that this inverted stereographic projection looks the best (turn on HD to watch):

After that we got a little braver, so when the next ship passed by (far enough to our left that we were in no danger of hitting it) we let the entire fifty meters of rope out.

Unless I’m misinterpreting the angles in these shots, I think they legitimize our earlier concerns (especially the second one).

We had the cameras out for over fifteen minutes total, and to my relief during this time most people took no notice of us. I would estimate that roughly fifteen bikers yelled at us to move, but none of them seemed interested in what we were doing beyond the fact that we were in their way.

Afterwards we went to the nearby Prospect Point cafe to process the video, so we could go back for a second take if something was wrong. Unlike the bikers, the manager there was so interested in what we were up to that he gave us free hot chocolate (with whipped cream!). If you’re reading this Tawsif, thanks again! 🙂

The full video, additional projections, etc. are available on my Youtube Channel. Unfortunately the stitching quality came out pretty bad in this case, which is why I am working on writing my own alternative to Kolor’s video stitching software. Stay tuned.