Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race
2017 Race Report: Green Slime Mold

These comedic pilots of Green Slime Mold were cheerful but appeared unburdened by affiliation to reality. Here, they cross the starting line.

50 feet later came their first breakdown.

Keep your eye on the pontoon support bar as Slime Mold approached the water. Note how the bar is fully adequate for bearing the weight of the foam pontoons. However, as forces of physics transform at the water entry as weight-bearing shifts from wheels to pontoons, this poor unsuspecting bar would never be the same again.

Immediately after entering the water, the support bar was surprised to find itself suddenly bearing the weight of the racers and sculpture. It sheared like a cornstalk barbell, which the pilots celebrated as a delightful discovery.

The pilots paddled the wreckage around the pier (towed by a rope lest it drift away), and heaved the hulk up the ramp. At this point, their craft having faced the same general fate as Shackleton’s Endurance, they abandoned ship and were later found at the awards ceremony.

They were destined for the Worst Honorable Mention, given to “the Sculpture whose half-baked theoretical ‘engineering’ did not deter its Pilot(s) from the challenge of the race.