As announced at last night’s meeting we’re having a competition: Clothesline Racing
The basic idea is to build a device that will travel from one end of a clothesline to the other and back again – there will be (chocolate) fishy prizes. The clothesline will be strung outside, as level as we can and fairly taut – but will probably dip a little in the middle.
The rules we’ll be using will be the same as those listed below:
http://www.tcmaker.org/blog/2010/10/clothesline-race-o-rama-mk2-sat-nov-20-2010/
with some minor (largely metric) changes – we’ll have a 30m line (if we can find somewhere that we can set it up – so plan for 30m), it’s 3.5mm wire, the weight limit is 2kg and the volume limit is a 1/2m cube.
We’ll also have some contest categories for those still in school The contest will be held in 2 months – probably July 2nd weather permitting. In the mean time, so you can test out your entries, we’ve set up a short course in the Makerspace – it’s about 1/3 the length of the one we’ll use on the day and only has one end stop – hang your racer above the sink end send it across and back again. We ask that you don’t test here entries that will make a mess – that water rocket, the contraption with baking soda and vinegar, they’ll be OK outside on the day, but please not in the makerspace.
This is something for which everyone should be able to hack together an entry – for some ideas here are some things that others have tried.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/noiseislife/sets/72157622667995260/with/4046598371/