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The First Day - Art Judging

Once again at the daVinci Days the leadership of the Kinetic Sculpture Race was rotated. The new leader was the High Lord Of Lunacy, Rich Hochadel.

	The Rex Files at the Art Judging.
	That is Karen next to me. Uh. Excuse me. That is Darak, alien from Saturn. The Rex Files creature is her pet. I should explain here the highly scientific method I use to choose co-pilots for the race. Unfortunately the pedal adjustment has rusted solid from racing in salt water. Fortunately it fits me. On both sides. So any co-pilot for The Rex Files must be the same height as I am. At least until we can manage to fix the rust problem.
	The Rex Files team sings our song. The Pagentry Judges were getting into it, so I handed them copies of the song so they could join us.
	She doesn't seem too scared even tho she is staring down the maw of the beast. What big teeth The Rex Files has... More pictures of kids.
	The Rex Files gets a hankering for Big Spicy Meatballs.
	But the meatheads fight The Rex Files off.
	The Rex Files tries to eat Valeria. She seems to be enjoying this!
	Tiki Torchure is Dwayne Flatmo's latest.
	Grendel is from Cresent Valley High School. This is their first year. The frame and front wheels were donated by Melissa Boyd, having raced last year as Fresh Fish. I lent them help making their seats.
	Sparkle. This is June Moxon's entry. Last year she was the flying elephant. The two years before that a rather scruffy dog.

This time the Muse hit me while I was in the shower. Fortunately I was able to clean up the mess. The result was this song. The music is cribbed shamelessly from the Science Fiction song in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The Rex Files Song

In 95 there was a Kinetic Sculpture class. It was taught by Ken Beidelman. And June Moxon was there with her usual flair. And she told us of Hobart Brown Then Dwayne Flatmo showed up that year at the race. And we all saw The Armordillo Then at a deadly pace, It came from outer space. And this is how The Rex Files came.

Time Rex traveled to far Saturn and brought back An alien creature. See aliens fighting Around The Rex Files They all come from Another planet Braooo, oh, oh, oh. At Corvallis daVinci Days KSR

I want to go Oh oh oh oh oh. To Corvallis daVinci Days KSR Its all terrain Oh oh oh oh oh. At Corvallis daVinci Days KSR Amphibious Oh oh oh oh oh. At Corvallis daVinci Days KSR

The Second Day - Safety Check and Parade

	During the brake test one of two brake cables on The Rex Files broke. Yow! But we managed to stop within the required time anyway. Fortunately we were able to buy a new brake cable at a motorcycle shop and fix it before the first event: the parade.
	Watching the Kinetic Sculpture Racer parade. More Kinetic Sculpture Race vehicles.

The Second Day - Road

The Second Day starts with the safety checks. The officials check that various safety equipment is onboard. They verify the sculpture is within the size limits. And they test us for steering and brakes.

Later all the sculptures are encouraged to parade thru downtown Corvallis. The Rex Files pit crew drives the sculpture in the parade. Meanwhile the pilots rest and eat lunch.

The race heads west thru campus. We proceed to the fairgrounds to where the sand pile was created.

	The Rex Files in the Road Race. Some of the race course is bucolic. Cows and horses sometimes amble over to get a better look.
	Toadboiler. The second day starts with the safety checks. In this picture Toadboiler is performing the brake test. You have to demonstrate that you can stop in a reasonable distance. The safety tests are wisely scheduled before the parade. It is considered tacky to kill spectators.
	Fish Tales.

The Second Day - Sand

	Time Flies 2 climbs the sand pile. Unfortunately there were two machines named Time Flies. This is the second one. It was created by Corvallis High School.
	Once we get to the fairgrounds it is time to change to sand tires. The team did this well, in spite of their inexperience.
	The Rex Files on the sand. I don't know if the sand was easier than usual. But we had no trouble at all. Its possible that our head shifted our center of gravity forward enough to make us more effective on sand.
	The down side of having our center of gravity rather far forward is that we could easily do a face plant coming down the sand pile. I made a point of not using the brakes on the way down.

The Third Day - Mud

	Barbara pumps up the pontoons for The Rex Files.
	Fortunately there are always kids willing to test the mud.
	Julianna had some trash to throw away. Unfortunately this young woman didn't want her trash can used for that. I wonder why?
	The Rex Files in the mud. We hit a deep spot in the mud and had to do a lateral shift and rotate. Also, Karen's gears were giving her lots of trouble. But we never pushed, so we retained our Leo. We inflate our pontoons before the mud so that we don't have to do that on the clock just before entering the water. But we put our pontoons on upside down to give us additional clearance thru the mud.
	Running Mate is the latest incarnation of Bob Durst's Tomato. The ostrich head can move up and down and look about. Running Mate is from Philomath.
	We arranged a water fight with Yellow Submarine. They had been harassing everyone with their water guns. So we got all the other racers to gang up on them just as they were about to enter the mud.
	Water fight with Yellow Submarine. The victory celebration.

The Third Day - River

	The Rex Files poised to enter the river. That's Igor hobbling toward us on the right.
	The Rex Files on the Willamette. The water drive was damaged last year in Ventura. I knew this before the daVinci Days race, but I didn't have the time to do anything about it. So we were about half as fast in the water as normal. And the pontoon supports tweaked when we were in the water, which jammed the steering. We could still steer, but it was a strain. I think we were lucky we didn't hit any eddies in the Willamette.
	We work The Rex Files up the shore to make the exit easy.

The Third Day - The Finish Line

We like to spin donuts at the finish line.

I'm delighted with how well The Rex Files fared this year at at daVinci Days!

How did we do?

Very well. My co-pilot and pit crew were rookies. In spite of that they performed very well. We got comments from both spectators and from judges saying how smoothly the team operated. At the end of the race the team was gushing with joy. When you accomplish something great by putting in the effort, it really feels good.

What was our time? I will tell you: I don't know. I expect a report to come out on the race mailing list over the next week or two. But really, time alone is not that important in this race. Anyway, its not more important than the other judging criteria. Those are Art/Pagentry and Engineering. And for us, getting a Leo is a point of pride.

Awards?

Yes. We got a **Leo**. That means we completed the race without having to push it. We made it thru the mud in less than 10 minutes. We entered the water and exited without assistance. We bested the sand hill.

But what really took the cake was that for the first time in the existence of Rex we won awards. And not just one!

Our winnings. Barbara is holding the trophy for Local Overall Champion. I am holding the trophy for 2nd place Engineering. Unfortunately we weren't able to assemble the whole team for this photo.

We got **Second Place Engineering**. I've always had a lot of confidence in the design for Rex. But there were some rough spots. In past years transitioning into the water took longer than for most machines. We were very fast after the transition, but the engineering judges are not watching that so much. So we got dinged. This year I finally found time to address that. I added some new levers that made lifting the machine much easier for the pilots. I'm guessing that this improvement was the greatest contribution to our taking Second Place Engineering.

But there were other contributors. I stretched the frame by more than a foot, leaving more space for alternate wheels. And I totally replaced the steering column, which makes the machine much more stable at speed. Oh yeh. I also replaced the old foam pontoons with inflatibles. The way the artwork was engineered may have also influenced the judges. And the smoothness with which the team worked probably helped. Poor training can make a machine look like it is more poorly engineered than it really is.

But that's not all. We also got the **Local Overall Champion** award. I'm still trying to figure out how many locals we were competing against. But I'm sure it helped that the Sweet Home Elementary School vehicle was not ready in time. And the two Corvallis High School machines didn't get as much time as they needed to do the job well. And Melissa Boyd was missing this year. That narrowed our competition down considerably.

I think it also helped that our Pagentry was stronger this year than it has been in the past. Karen, my co-pilot, played the part of an alien well. And her Mom, Amy, played Igor the assistant with vigor.

Plus we arranged a water fight raid against Yellow Submarine, the bad boys of KSR. It was very public and very deserved. I don't know if this helped our pagentry. But it couldn't hurt. And with the temperature well into the eighties, nobody was complaining.

What didn't work well?

The right side transmission got worse and worse during the race. It stopped us a couple of times in the mud. By the end of the race it was close to worthless. And for the ferry home it was totally worthless. I don't know how hard it will be to fix. The left side transmission had only a minor breakdown. It will be easy to fix.

What worked very well?

Unlike in previous years, the radios worked very well. We had wonderful communication. We had one communication blackout as we were coming off of the Bald Hill segment of the race because of power line interference. That one cost us a 15 minute penalty because I didn't know I needed to stop at an intersection.

And the steering was wonderfully stable. We hit top speeds of 18MPH. Even with that huge head out front wobbling around, The Rex Files was rock solid at 18MPH.

What do I want to improve?

• Repairs for the problems mentioned above.
• Electronic controls for the eyes. The servos are in place. But I didn't have time to make the pulse generators to control them.
• Controls for the neck and mouth.
• Fix the pedal adjustments so that pilots don't have to be my size.
• Install two passenger seats.
• And dozens of small items that I won't list here.

What are the next events?

There is a parade sometime in August. There is a small race at Stevenson Washington in September. In October there are races in Pt Townsend Washington and Ventura California.

As you can see there are many opportunities ahead. If you want to join a winning team, give me a ring. Its a gas.