One evening in the month of April, Brandon came in and said he has a school project for his theatre class, which is a group project and they (the group) decided to build the project at our house.  It is his Theatre Tech Class, where they study the mechanical aspects of theatre, props, and other stuff.  I asked him what the project consisted of, and he said a vehicle that they would move around a race track under it's own power and carry the group as they shoot the other contestants with air propelled foam bullets.  Well I thought, this is much larger than previous projects, a sword made of computer components, and a flashlight, made of non-flashlight components.  He cheated on that one and used a light bulb and socket from an old flashlight.  
     

 

      
 

Construction of the Vehicle

  
             
            The first thing that happened was his friends (classmates) brought over a bunch of junk which consisted of an old go cart, some old fence wood, old posts and some miscellanies  boards and stuff.  They messed around with the go cart for the day trying to get it to start, but it was a waste of time.  They left for the day and didn't show back up for a week.  When they did return, things got ugly, I mean what they had built the second day was ugly.  A platform of old jagged wood nailed, screwed, and put together as best as they could.  At this time there were only 3 of 5 in the group participating in the project.  They came back the second day and one of the kids got a great idea, he had some money his dad had donated for some tires and some hardware to get the platform off the ground.  
             
       
 

 

          
 

          The next weekend, Brandon was feeling like they weren't going to be able to make the deadline, they spent all day attaching these wheels to the platform but when they put a little weight on it they (the wheels) started to bow and it looked like a bad suspension job on a VW bug.  Also while they were working on them, I asked if the race track had any curves or was it more like a drag strip.  They said it had lots of curves, and I asked how they were going to turn the vehicle beings they were making all 4 wheels fixed?  They said, "Oh yea".

          Brandon and I spent a couple of nights working on the wheels, getting them to support the weight with the hardware they had purchased, and designing a turning front end that also would support the weight.  Brandon found out it's not as easy as it looked in the drawings.  By the way, they had no real drawings.  The requirements were the vehicle must be propelled in any way except by putting feet directly on the ground.  Their first idea was the go-cart's motor, but quickly focused on one of our scooters.  The only problem with that idea was the scooters, were only strong enough to move a 250 lb person, not 5 140 lb persons.  They ended up using Brandon's bike.  One of the guy's who didn't show to build the vehicle was chosen to ride the bike, another bad decision.

  
             
       
             
 

          After the vehicle was done they needed some protection from the nerf weapons of the other racers.  So they set out to scour the land for some additional building materials.  Another hint from yours truly that whatever they used needed to be light weight like cardboard.  They found a cash of boxes from a local music store and proceeded to complete the project.  2000 staples later, they figured that the 1/2" staples wouldn't do the job and ended up using a box of 3/4" grabbers I had for use on my haunted yard exhibit.

  
             
       
             
 

          With all of the side boards secured, all it needed now was paint.  Brandon and Landon were then only ones left, and in my book these 2 guys should have gotten all of the credit.  Now it's done and Landon will be by in the morning to take it to school, in his dad's truck.

  
             
             
  Race Day