The Spazzbot.
Sadly I no longer seem to have a picture of it, so a description will have to suffice.

When I was in engineering school, I was in a class where they paired up engineering students with sculpture students, gave us loose guidelines and sat back to see what we would create. My partner was a guy named Morgan, a typical art student in old stained tee shirts and jeans with hair that stuck up in all directions. Obviously we hit it off instantly.

I had made a silly gizmo out of a vibrating motor from a pager and a couple of paperclips. I named it the Spazzbot as it jittered all over the table when I switched it on, causing all who saw it to involuntarily giggle. I showed it to Morgan and his eyes lit up. "Let's make a six foot tall one!"

The idea made me grin, so it had to be done.

I went diving in the dump and found an old clothes washer and took out its motor. At home I tested it and found that it worked just fine. I estimated its speed to be about 10 revolutions per second. I guessed that I'd want about 10 lbs of lateral thrust, so based on that I did some quick calculations and determined that I would want about a pound of weight at six inches from the axis. I searched through the scrap iron pile and found a couple of chunks of bar and got someone to weld it on (I wasn't allowed, as I wasn't a sculpture student), then found a small chunk of iron for the end to be the weight. It didn't look like enough, so I got a much larger chunk and got that welded on.

Meanwhile we constructed a big thing that looked like a bastard hybrid of a lawn chair and a daddy longlegs. We put a plate at the top to bolt down the motor, so I did so and attached the weight. I then put on a power cord. It was ready for a test.

Only thing was, Morgan wasn't there. But being an impatient bastard I carried it outdoors and dragged out a cord with me to try it on my own anyway.

I stood with the plugs in my hands, and had a moment of caution. I hunkered down on the pavement, well below the level of the motor, took a deep breath and plugged it in.

With a shuddering roar the thing leaped from the pavement, gaining about a foot of air before landing. I yanked out the plug before it could get me, then stared at it like Frankenstein watching his monster rampage. Holy shit, I should have stuck with my calculations. Half of the welds on the frame had popped loose from less than a second of power.

Right about them Morgan showed up. "What happened to it?" I described my experience and his eyes lit up. "Do it again!"

Oh FUCK no.

I cut back on the weight and we displayed it for the class. The art students crowded close as it shuddered menacingly across the floor at them while the engineering students and teachers cowered against the wall.

We got an A.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 11 Oct 2012, 22:11, Reply)