Congrats to the Kinetic Sculpture Race Team!

Wed, 17 Jun 2015 09:20:43 -0400

"The Grand Overall East Coast Ace Champion must ACE the course. The award is determined by Mysterious Mathematical Means which include a point scoring system based on artistic merit, engineering prowess, and blinding speed of the Sculpture. The Sculpture with the highest average score in art, engineering, and speed is the Grand Champion."

On Sunday June 14th 2015 UMBC's Kinetic Sculpture Racing (KSR) team won the "Grand East Coast National Mediocre Champion Award" which means that we are eligible to race in the Kinetic Grand Championship in California. The amphibious Kraken Upcycle endured 15 miles of Baltimore roadways, water, mud, and sand tests, and overcame a mechanical breakdown midway through the race in order to finish the course. A photo of the Kraken is now featured on the Kinetic Baltimore preliminary results pageat http://www.kineticbaltimore.com/KSR/2015/Preliminary.asp.
Our four pilots represented four different majors at UMBC: Gabriel "Ragnar the Creator" Margarida from Mechanical Engineering, Rob "Destroyer of all Kraken Nuisances" Ford from Geography and Environmental Systems, Vijay "Long Chain" Raju from Media and Communication Studies (also a professional mountain bike racer), and Kirby "the Wanderer" Kelbaugh, a recent Interdisciplinary Studies graduate. Riding with the pit crew were chief artistic designer Mai Huong Huynh-Teage (a recent Visual Arts graduate), Fulbright scholar Stephen "the Maimed" Moore, Interdisciplinary Studies students Markus "the Kraken Slayer" Proctor, Jasper "the sailmaker" Dudley and Heather "maker of jellyfish hats and sock puppet" Mortimer, and Professor Steven McAlpine. They were all enrolled in an Interdisciplinary Studies Spring 2015 Project Based Learning course, and this award is an affirmation of their dedicated teamwork and brilliant design. Special thanks to Andrew "the Giant" Starck, who towed the Kraken up the ramp out of the water (and chief pontoon designer), Daniel "Gatorade" Teage for riding with the pit crew and taking great photographs, Nandit "the Bottle King" Shah, Jack "the Keeneyed Kineticist" Neumeier, and Andres "Submarine" Camacho for their design and build work with the team.