I'm about to head off to my favorite event of the year...Maker Faire! Fortunately this year, I'll be combining Maker Faire with my love of my second favorite event, which is the Humboldt County Kinetic Grand Championship. I'll be delivering a short, sassy 20-minute lecture on the race on the center stage at 11:00 on Sunday.
As something of a nOOb to the kinetic sculpture world, I was smart enough to get help from some established kinetic masters. I couldn't have put this together without the help of Randall Frost, a veteran kinetic sculptor who has a treasure trove of images dating back to the earliest days of the race in the late '60s. In fact, the photo above dates from the early days, when the race wasn't held on Ferndale's main street. The city race made it easier for racers to build wackier machines that didn't have engineering requirements as specific as today's racer. This photo shows the "Farmer-Go-Round", which was an antique farm cart powered by three strapping farmers running on a merry-go-round.
I'm also totally indebted to Elliot Naess, who put together a "How to Build a Kinetic Sculpture" booklet that you can download from Kinetic Baltimore's website. Rather than being a strict "how-to", the booklet gives you some rough ideas for building your own kinetic sculpture--whether you're going to be lashing a couple of 10-speeds together or custom-engineering your version of the kinetic holy grail--a perfect transmission that will allow you to ace the course.
I'm also deeply honored (and maybe a little bit intimidated) to join a bevy of my crafty compadres at a "Crafting Your Online Presence" workshop put together by the inimitable Sister Diane. Check out the extraordinary lineup HERE. We'll be chatting about the things we did to get our work out there in the cluttered world of the interwebs. Truly...if I can do it, anybody can. The panels will be Saturday AND Sunday at noon in the CRAFT magazine area.
See you at Maker Faire!
