From moss@cvs.rochester.edu Thu Jan 20 15:47:45 1994 Received: from merlin.cvs.rochester.edu by mother.ent.rochester.edu with SMTP id AA00957 (5.65/IDA-1.4.4 for /usr/local/lib/lists/balloon.archive); Thu, 20 Jan 1994 15:47:45 -0500 Received: by merlin.cvs.rochester.edu (4.1/t.1) id AA13314; Thu, 20 Jan 94 15:46:03 EST Message-Id: <9401202046.AA13314@merlin.cvs.rochester.edu> From: moss@merlin.cvs.rochester.edu (Larry Moss) Date: Thu, 20 Jan 1994 15:46:02 EST Organization: very little X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.1 12/20/90) To: balloon@ent.rochester.edu Subject: bike and car Suggestions from Todd A Neufeld to make a bike into a car (forwarded with his permission): > I still have some finals, so I haven't 'perfected' the car, but here it > the idea: > > 1. Make four wheels. That means the spirals and the balloons that holds > it all together. > > 2. The bike has a balloon connect the wheels so they are in line with > each other. For a car, use those figure-eight balloons to connect them so > that the flat part of the wheels face each other (rotate the wheels > 90 degrees). > > 3. Next, connect the wheels just like the bike. However, use one branch > from the right/forward wheel to the right/back wheel and vise versa. This > makes a side of the car that is two balloons thick. On my car I made one > of them straight for stability, and one of them a little long so it > curved. > > 4. Connect the left side them same way. > > \ / > \ / > \0======0/ > > That is what each side should look like. > > This is just like two bikes, only the wheels have been rotated 90 degrees, > and you connect the sides with one balloon from each wheel, not two from > one wheel. > > 5. For stability, and a weak-looking floor, I added a balloon through the > middle. This one connected each axle, and still had some room to spare at > each end. I made one end into a flower, and popped it straight up. This > was my nifty steering wheel. The other end was nothing. A small muffler > perhaps. > > To be cute, I made a little guy with legs that wrapped around this middle > balloon and arms (pop twist of course) that held on to the flower steering > wheel. > > 6. Now, the car has four wheels, two sides, a floor, a driver, a steering > wheel, and four dumb-looking balloons projecting in the air. > > I treated those like the handlebars on the bike. A little ear twist bent > them. I tied them together. Now I the car has a "roof" skeleton over tha > back and one of the front. > > 12 balloons were used, including the driver. To make a better roof you > could use balloon chunks to go from side to side, or whole balloons that > went from the front to the back. I liked it with out a roof. A > convertable, or more like a dune buggy. > > Another way to make sides or a floor/roof may be a take-off of the > birdcage [The birdcage was posted long ago and is available from teh mailing list archive.] On Dec 15, 2:39am Todd A Neufeld writes: > A quick thought: > > If you connect the sides with two arms from one wheel, (ala bike), you > will be left with a lopsided roof. The back will reack high up, and the > front not very high at all. This can be used to make a sports car with an > aerodynamic roof. Try it. > > Todd > I had trouble making a car this way since getting all of the wheels the same size and evenly balancing teh whole thing was rather difficult. I did use Todd's idea of turning the wheels 90 degrees from the way I had them in order to get two wheels side by side rather than one behind the other. I then used that as teh back wheels of a tricycle. Does anyone have any other ideas for a car? I'm most interested in a 1 balloon car, but a mulitple balloon sculpture would be fine. With one balloon I managed to make something thta I called a VW beetle. It was very similar to a turtle. Larry