Sara takes on her first engineering task - building a small go-cart/speeder out of random stuff we have laying around the house.
2025-08-09
I was doing a bit of work in the storage space under our house and I pulled out a bunch of the old junk that the previous owners had left behind. Sara got to work. She used a bunch of paper tape to create a sled - with all the fixings - a chair for monkey, a chair for her, a storage tub in the back, a pull cord for helping her get up to speed, and a bunch of wires and pipes - well, for funsies.
I thought the creation was amazing so I offered that we would take her to the park to give it a shot. We took it to the top of the hill and slid it down! She was really packed in there and there wasn’t a lot of room to maneuver - but she love it!
We ran into a few snags with the initial design - the first was that the tape didn’t hold things to gether very well. Also, the board would dig into the ground with any imperfections of the grass - we really needed a lip in the front like sleds have to keep it from digging in. So at the end of the day - Sara Speedy was in pieces…
We had to have a small chat about what it means to fail. Sara was very sad about the unscheduled disassembly and we had a little talk about how failure only happens when you give up - we had improvements to make, so this was all just learning.
2025-08-11
Our next version - Gen 2 - had a lip around the front edge made from an old leaf blower pipe and we screwed/bolted down the trunk and the chair (which was made from a lawn mower bag). We also removed some of the wiring/pipes to make way for more handles.
This test was much more successful - we were able to get Sara all the way down the hill without an unscheduled disassembly and it was pretty fun! It still didn’t behave fully like a sled in the snow, but we were able to get some speed going. The stop was a bit rough though.
The end of the test day ended on a much more positive note - we had a working Speedy and now we were on to Gen 3!
2025-08-23
Gen 3 was a change in structure to the Speedy - instead of trying to use it like a sled, we added wheels. These were filing cabinet wheels - made for a 80 lbs filing cabinet.
I added a piece of an old dog crate to the front pivoting wheels - securing it to the wheel brakes (which we weren’t really using) This allowed the speeder to go in a straight line (instead of shaking when it got up to speed). We did a few tests running the speeder down the hill before we ran out of daylight
2025-08-24
The following morning, we added an old paint roller handle taped to the front wheels and now - Sara could steer!
Next, we got it up to speed to test how quickly Sara could use the steering and react to keep the speeder going straight or to turn.
Last but not least, we did the full test. Sara went up to the top of the small hill in our driveway and raced down the hill!
We already have grand plans for Gen 4 - so more to come