#3 Balloon Crawler

Balloon Crawler

Build a car at the event OR at home with the specified materials that uses a balloon for propulsion. “Race” your car head-to-head against everyone else (double-elimination format). The last car to touch the finish line wins.

Results

First Place - Travis S.

Second Place - Topher P.

Third Place - Thomas R.

Pictures

When

  • Friday 08-July-2016
  • Build-at-the-event: 5pm-7pm
  • Contest: 7pm

Where

Out of Bounds Brewing
4480 Yankee Hill Road #100
Rocklin, CA 95677

Materials

  • Masking tape (1/2”)
  • 3x5 index cards
  • Plastic straws
  • Wooden skewers (aprox. 1/8” diameter round, 12” long)
  • Standard Party Balloons

materials

Car Rules

  1. The car must be built with only the materials specified (they don’t have to be identical but must be very similar)
  2. If you build your car at home you’ll still need to use an event-supplied balloon on your car for the actual race
  3. Only one balloon may be used in the final design (all other materials can be used as much as desired)
  4. Must be a car (minimum of three wheels)
  5. The car must start entirely behind the starting line
  6. The race is finished when any part of the last car touches the finish line
  7. The balloon must be the source of propulsion
  8. Repairs and modifications can be made between qualifying rounds
  9. You will have one(1) hour to build your car and approximately three(3) minutes between matches

Event Rules

  1. Build-at-the-event starts at 5pm
  2. Inspections for home-built cars starts at 6:45pm
  3. Brackets will be generated at random and races will start at 7pm
  4. Race track is aproximately 10’ in length
  5. Both cars must be released at the same time and the last car to touch the finish line is the winner, not the first
  6. Your car must touch the finish line within two minutes of starting
  7. If one of the cars in a race fails to touch the finish line within two minutes the car that did pass the finish line wins
  8. If both cars in a race fail to touch the finish line within two minutes a second race will be allowed
  9. If, on the second attempt, both cars fail to touch the finish line a coin will be flipped to decide the winner

Tools

You can bring your own tools – some scissors may be supplied

Example Car

Don’t know where to start? Here’s a simple car, built from the listed materials, that will go 10’ in a few seconds.

car