Thursday, September 22, 2005

PTRace2000 - I participated ...

PTRace2000: "This weekend I participated in the Port Townsend Kinetic Skulpture Race. This race is an annual event, this year was it's 18th year. The race is designed and built after the original Kinetic Skulpture Race started some 30 years ago by a man by the name of Hobart Brown. He built a tricycle of sorts in his living room, hoping to design it in such a way that would allow it to ride over land and through water, and thus the race was started. Now every year people gather at the various official kinetic skulpture races that are held around the world to race their creations against each other. Since the original plan of making the skulpture able to go through water and across land, many of the races now also have an additional portion. In some places, it's a length of sand dune, in Port Townsend, it's THE DISMAL BOG. This year there were 22 entries in the race, and each of us had to be able to tackle not only the road and water portions of the kourse, but also THE DISMAL BOG. THE DISMAL BOG consisted this year of about 2 feet of standing water on top of some truly horrible muddy mud, with bits of hay bales and other odds and ends floating in it. It was a pretty good DISMAL BOG.

So the story goes like this: Last year I went to the race, and watched all these amazing contraptions constructed to be able to handle the complexities of the kourse. There were a wide variety of displays of ingenuity and creativity, and a subsequently wide variety of designs implemented. Some of the kinetic skultures were as follows:"

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