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Monday
30 April 2001
page # 1 of 3
11 45 am pdt [ lego love ]
Matthew
and his boss have agreed that he should work from home one day a week, so
he is clack-clacking at his computer while I have propped myself up in
bed.
It was a supreme joy this weekend to attend The 2nd
Annual Ultimate LEGO Vehicle Contest.
Matthew fetched me at the airport and we drove straight
to the contest location, but still were an hour and a half late. By some
divine intervention, the contest was running exactly an hour and a half
late, so we caught the tail end of the rules and dug in to make our
strange inventions.
And now to quote a bit from the e-mailed invitation I
got to the contest... We competed in:
- Aesthetics (Everyone has 10 points to distribute secretly however
they wish to the cars based on creativity, design, etc.)
- Speed (like the old Cub Scout Pinewood Derby Race). Brendan has
constructed a ramp and vehicles race to cross the finish line first.
- Ski Jump
- Distance
- Demolition Derby. Vehicles ram into each other and are eliminated
when the vehicle loses its driver (and/or wheels). This is the
last event for obvious reasons.
Some highlights from last year's event:
- Mark's car was powered by a weight (he was a physics
major in case you can't tell) that lit up and made sounds
- Thom's monkey car
- Lauren's Folsom St. S&M leather bar car
- Ja$on's upside down boat car
- Brendan's A-Team tank
- Arwin's car that moved in all dimensions - right side up, upside
down, left side, and right side
Matthew and I were invited by our hosts Brendan (of thereverend.com) and
Lila, whom we met last year on a Chevys
date with Kathy (of shrinetochevys.com) and Mark. We didn't know the nine
other attendees.
 We had two hours of construction time. At some
point during my building session, I began laughing because my car was just
so silly (the tires were close to the center under the car) and I had no
strategy or design technique. I was just having fun, and I ended up
finishing quite early. Several people finished constructing after time
was called and it was only when all the cars were place on a table that I
got to see how wonderfully imaginative the various designs were.
We began by voting on what I called "the beauty
contest." We each had ten points to distribute to however many cars we
felt deserved them. It so happened that everybody would up with at least
some points, which seemed rather perfect.
The first confrontation was a downhill race. I believe
I finished fourth; this would be the only contest in which I was
competitive. Since I hadn't really designed my car to score well in any
of the competitions, I claimed I was going to lose, but Kathy was
determined to hold last place. I ended up tying for second to last
overall. Next year I'll have to get my revenge...
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