The Road to Crab Park

A description of Ominionated courtesy its designer:

ART: “This was a 26” bike, more like two or three, which was highly modified into a 120 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. This will be its first race although it has been through a few parades. With all hopes the major bugs have been worked out. Calculated max speed is about 11 mph running a peddle speed of 60 rpm. The lowest speed with this peddle speed is less than 1 mph with everything set at the lowest gears see the attached worksheet. It has been clocked doing 17 mph for a short distance on level roadway.

ENGINEERING: “The drive system is set up based on three 5 speed clusters. This gives me a 15 speed vehicle that can be set on 5 different drive ranges, giving me a unit that has 75 forward gears. Speed on the water is unknown at this time. I have gone back to a paddle wheel set-up. This removes the power drain that the propeller drive train gave me during last year’s race. Also, with the move to the river crossing, the second half of the crossing is in fairly shallow water. This generates a problem for propeller depth. Hopefully my paddles will be large enough to propel me at a suitable speed. Currently I am unable to water test the craft because I would have the same speeds as on land, you cannot test floatation on thick ice. I have run my spreadsheet that calculates draft and it looks like that it can be balanced on its pontoons with no problem. This craft build was started over a year ago. It was put on hold until I had completed last year’s race. The lessons learned last year confirmed a number of concepts that I had planned for this craft. 

OTHER: “This is the tenth year that I have been in kinetics. I do kinetics because it is fun and I like to see people smile. The challenge of building a craft that can do everything that is required in kinetics keeps the mind young.”