 Past Incarnations: 2003: PPPP 2002: Conundrum 2001: Rolling Blackout 2000: Barrel of Monkeys 1999: Cow-Trans Official KSR page |
The 36th (or so) Annual World Famous Arcata to Ferndale Kinetic Sculpture Race  KSR 2004 This year we break from tradition by re-hashing a previous year's theme. Why would we do such a thing, having established a strict no-repeat policy? An awe-inspiring feat of engineering: this year, the machine pops popcorn! The grand promise of 2003 has been fulfilled. This year's pilots can turn enormous physical exertion into enough electricity to heat up a small metal dish mounted inside a spherical plastic lettuce crisper, and pop genuine, edible popcorn! The sculpture made it to the Arcata Plaza this morning to a disturbingly well-organized event. While most of the traditional lunacy remains intact, there seems to be a contingent of responsible adults that has somehow infiltrated the race, concerned with notions such as the safety of the racers and the crowd, and strict adherence to established rules. With any luck these ne'r-do-wells will be taken into custody before day 2 begins. While waiting at the plaza for the race to start, the PPPP was placed into neutral, the popcorn poppers were wired up, and the pilots began pedalling furiously. Over the course of the next ten minutes, a crowd gathered, drawn by the irresitable allure of popping corn, the inherent suspense as the oil heats, the jack-in-the-box surprise that captured our collective imagination at infancy... Watching popcorn pop. Finally, a kernel popped. Then another, then a third. Eventually nearly a dozen kernels underwent their glorious transformation, to the enthusiastic applause of the crowd, a lucky few of whom were actually lucky enough to taste the hard-won fruits of our pilot's extremely inefficient labor. A cosmic tumbler had clicked into place, the machine was truly a People Powered Popcorn Popper. Then, with tears of joy in our eyes, we heard the Noon Whistle Let's face it: people watch races to see the cars crash. A few folks are concerned with who finishes fastest, but NASCAR thrives largely due to the high probability of explosions; it's good theater. Similarly, past accounts of Howdy Goudey's barrel-buoyed creations have been composed of serial disasters strung together; a narrative of pain and despair. But alas, I'm sad to report that the machine ran better than ever. There was a good deal of grunting and digging and slipping on the first bad dune as we left the beach and began the stretch that leads to Dead Mans Drop, but the machine made it intact. For the steep approach to DMD, we installed "chains" made from doormats (which, oddly enough, were made from the by-products of flip-flop sandal manufature), and though one of them eventually deteriorated into nothingness, the climb was steady and required no pushing from the pit crew (not even at the "legal push zone"), due to low gearing and high hopes. And the descent of Dead Man's Drop (while terrifying and involving a bit more sideways sliding than I recall), was a sight to behold. At last, disaster struck, er, sort of. As soon as the craft made it to the pavement, the road tires were re-attached and the samoa bridge was in sight, there was a very loud CRACK, then a ping-ping sound as bits of metal fell into the street. The bits of metal looked very important and the fact that they had broken into three pieces and fallen off seemed like a very large problem, but as it turns out, they were able to make a few adjustments and get back on the road. From that point they couldn't use every combination of front-pilot and back-pilot gears that they could before, but they were still able to traverse the three hills of the Samoa bridge (top speed 19 MPH) and cross the finish line at 5:55PM. It was decided that we should pop some victory popcorn, and while the unpopped kernels that we used were the ones that were left over from that morning's popping session, and there was a good deal of smoking, another successful popping was placed into the history books (really obscure history books, of course). Day 1 Ace status: Intact. I've been told that Howdy brought an extra important metal thing, so tomorrow looks promising, except that I've also been told that the craft is still really slow in the water. Day 2 Ace status: Intact It worked great... It broke. Basically cracked in half in the slough, along with the elusive Ace. Maybe next year... Our past years: 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999 The official race page. |