Ferndale Foto Finishes

Soggy Glory

A description of the sculpture courtesy its designer:

ART: Very little Art and not much Pageantry. You cannot expect much from an Ominionated Minion. Art A one minion driven machine. It is a small one minion vehicle that might spew items from its jet power pack, but nothing that will take it out of the quest for ACE.

ENGINEERING: This was a 26” bike, more like three or four, which was highly modified into a 140 lbs. kinetic vehicle. The width is less than 8 ft., we have to make it legal. It is set-up in a delta trike configuration with duals on all three sets of wheels making it a hexacycle. I have rebuilt the power unit using mostly electrical conduit tubing. This is in keeping with the philosophy of building the craft from electrical conduit where possible. I have lowered the final sprocket ratio by 25%. This will lower my speed, but will increase my power for the last dune before Dead Man Drop. The drive system is set up based on two 6 speed and one 5 speed cassettes. This gives me a 15 speed vehicle that can be set on 6 different drive ranges, giving me a unit that has 90 forward gears. Calculated max speed is about 8 mph running a peddle speed of 60 rpm. I have had this craft up to 17 mph on a slight downhill. The lowest speed with this peddle speed is about ½ mph with everything set at the lowest gears. The craft is propelled in the water by paddle wheels that are integral part of the drive wheels. These wheels are adjustable in the water to take a better bite and not have as much churning as the position they are needed for the water to land and the land to water transition.

OTHER: Speed on the water is unknown at this time. I am keeping with my philosophy of, “Why waste a good sinking without the benefit of an audience”. Keeping with this mindset, I have sunk the last two years due to sudden structural failure. This has generated great audience participation and many stories of the hauling of the craft over rocky banks and pulling it through 24 inch soft mud. I have tested the vehicle structurally, this year, to verify it does not buckle under the stresses of the pontoons. The plan this year is to have two uneventful water crossings on my way to my goal of earning the ACE