Off to the Races!

This evening we held the Balch Invitational and "raced" our DIY cars in the main lab. Restech Matt had given the directive a few weeks ago: make a car 1) out of found materials (ie trash) 2) smaller than a coffee mug 3) without using any power tools. Those rules turned into more like guidelines and some were ignored entirely by the time the big event came around. 

Bigelow scientist Dave Drapeau squares off against
WHOI grad student Julia Middleton.

An unused table top propped on a milk crate served as a ramp. Heats of two cars each made the daring descent. Some cars drove straight and far, while others twirled and stalled. 

Everyone ended up with a ribbon, ranging from "First Place" (The Balchmobile) to "You Tried So Hard" (my foam creation that scooted about 5 inches before grinding to a halt. 

I'll post some video footage once I have the bandwidth. A good time was had by all contenders and viewers. What should our next project be?