On Saturday, the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM) will host its annual East Coast Kinetic Sculpture Race Championship on the shore of Baltimore's Inner Harbor. This innovative race is adapted from the initiative of California artist Hobart Brown, who in 1969 transformed his son's tricycle into a five-wheeled pentacycle for a race down Main Street. Maryland's modern day equivalent of this vehicle is known as a "kinetic sculpture" and has evolved into an "amphibious, human-powered work of art custom-built for the race."
Sponsored by an Arts Innovation grant and the Program in Museums and Society, the Hopkins team was able to realize its goal of competing in the race with their sculpture, "Twitter Jay and the Recyclists."
Under the blue head of the sculpture, graduate student David Hung, engineering director of the project, and junior Josh Hewitt, technology director, our pilots, take their seats. In what may prove to be a rash decision, they have promised to pedal Hopkins' sculpture throughout the entire eight hour, 15-mile span of the race. The rest of the Hopkins team will mostly cheer on their fellow sculptors, while some will work as the official pit crew.
Nora Krinitsky, a student earning her minor in Museums and Society, first learned about the race through trips to the AVAM, during which she saw some past sculptures. She subsequently contacted Joan Freedman, the director of the Digital Media Center (DMC), who frequently supports student projects. Through Freedman, Krinitsky met others who were interested in the race, and her team slowly formed.
On the actual day of the race, graduate student Rebecca Shapiro and DMC staff member Yana Sakellion will watch from the sidelines, while all other team members ???- senior Krinitsky, project manager and head of logistics, Joan Freedman, DMC director and advisor, sophomore Tabor Barranti, artistic director, junior Aasiyeh Zarafshar, sophomore Ian Lee, and freshman Stephanie Smith - will serve in the pit crew. As previously mentioned, Hung and Hewitt will be piloting the mobile sculpture.
Although the Hopkins team built their kinetic sculpture collaboratively, the leadership roles that both Hung and Barranti assumed in the engineering and artistic aspects of the sculpture became crucial to the vehicle's successful completion.
Hung led the team in developing the mechanical elements of their sculpture. With the help of engineering professors and Hung's leadership and initiative, the team performed a variety of tasks, one of which involved incorporating bikes, necessary flotation devices and paddle wheels into the sculpture.
Barranti, a mechanical engineer, spearheaded the sculpture's artistic construction. She designed the body of the bird, shaping its frame with hoops of electrical conduit covered with plastic chicken wire. She also directed the feathering of the bird. To accomplish this, she ironed plastic bags together to make a continuous fabric for the wings and tail and tied strips of the bags onto the plastic chicken wire covering the bird's body to make the feathers.
These plastic bags were the team's primary method of manifesting their theme of recycling in the project; They also utilized recycled floatation devices and tools. They used barrels from a Pepsi plant in their flotation device and used a donated on-board laptop as well as a cell phone on loan from Mobil-Trac for the Twitter texts.
The involvement of both the DMC staff and student staff in this project enabled the Hopkins team to give their sculpture a unique technical slant.
The team will be recording live footage of the race and data about the riders through webcams and an on-board laptop. This information will later be displayed at the Mattin Center party on May 8.
Additionally, the Hopkins team set up a Twitter account (username hopkinsbluejay). According to Krinitsky, "On the day of the race, spectators will be able to [send] text messages to the sculpture at (443) 453-4012 and see their messages appear on the LED sign that is affixed to the back of the sculpture."
As novices to the race, Krinitsky and her team have spent a lot of time planning the water stretch of the race, often the most challenging element. However, despite the hours of work they have put into preparation and building, Krinitsky's focus is simple: having a good time. "I am really just looking forward to a fun day enjoying this crazy Baltimore event!" said Krinitsky. "I think it's great when Hopkins students participate in community events like this, which I think is an important aspect of our project."
The team's fun-loving spirit is evident in their decision to not attempt to achieve ACE, the award for the highest level of competition. They are actually hoping for one of the less serious awards, such as the "Golden Dinosaur," which is awarded to the first vehicle to break down, the "Worst Honorable Mention," which is apparently the "lowest award known to humankind," or the "Golden Flipper," which is awarded to the most creative water entry. A few other awards ("Best Bribes" and "Sock Creature of the Universe") are even less serious.
Finally, the team's determination to be prepared for anything and everything is clear in their "bribe" for the judges (it is rumored that teams are supposed to appeal to the judges' more material sides): the Hopkins team procured blue Peeps, representative of their mascot, to help push the judges in the right direction.
