Thursday, September 27, 2012

World Maker Faire 2012

We're about to make the journey to World Maker Faire.  As usual time has rushed by and grand plans of things to bring with us have distilled down to trying to complete one thing to bring.  Fortunately this year's Faire will include the Nerdy Derby, giving us a clear objective to shoot for.

But what to build?  There are some intimidating projects out there for the derby that I can't hope to match.  We could do LEGO, but with this season's FLL team in full swing we have our fill of brick building and engineering.  The girls and their Girl Scout troops have been doing a lot of art projects with duct tape...  Hmmm...




I started with a piece of perfboard cut to the length and width of a block from a pinewood derby kit.  A few wraps with duct tape and added the axles.

Then it was a matter of cutting and rolling lengths of tape, stacking them, taping them down, and repeating.  The entire (except the board base) is duct tape.  We used some appropriate, non-standard duct tape patterns for the finishing touches.

Unfortunately the car had a run-in with my smallest daughter.  Superglue was required to rebuild one wheel.  With one wobbly wheel it will probably not put in the fastest time, but I think it has a certain style.