#billy cart

[gregcarrick]

Had a break from shooting a Billy Cart Race to wave the chequered flag

[micdousmi]

Royals, thongs and kangaroos: Billy cart race tears up Sydney street

Royals, thongs and kangaroos: Billy cart race tears up Sydney street

It’s the other race that stops a nation — the 2015 Red Bull Billy Cart Race saw the UK royal family, a giant thong (that’s a flip-flop if you’re not Australian), and a big yellow kangaroo fly through Sydney’s Centennial Park on Sunday. The annual event unites amateur and experienced racers to design, build and race a homemade billy cart in teams of three. The machines are powered by gravity and…

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[fitnessterritory]

Down Hill Racer by THROUGHthePRISM

Down Hill Racer by THROUGHthePRISM

[fitnessterritory]

Signal by THROUGHthePRISM

Signal by THROUGHthePRISM

[randompunkhead]

[mage0r]

Our next billy cart was another one for my eldest Nephew.

His school runs a billy cart race every two years and was actually one of the inspirations for the entire CNC project.  About 3 weeks beforehand my sister asked me if they could use one of the others I'd made.

I'd already decided to do a bit of a redesign, so I decided it was easier to start from scratch.  It was designed to be a little easier to put together, giving a boxy outline.  It's assembled using barrel nuts and bolts, to reduce the problems with screwing into the end of plywood.  The whole cart was designed to be wider and thus more stable cornering.  It was also designed for larger wheels, but I wasn't able to source them in time.

The steering mechanism was greatly improved.  There's nearly a full rotation from lock to lock, so it's very smooth to drive.

Needless to say, the boys loved it.  The competition called for two pushers and one driver, but as you can see from the video's the younger kids all got in on the drawing.

Initially, I'd decided to let the boys paint it, but we realised that time was going to be short.  A quick coat of blackboard paint turned out to be the solution, the kids quickly covered it with all sorts of pictures and any mistakes were easy to rub off!

In the end the boys had a great race.  Out of 35 competitors they came in 6th place.  The race was school wide which meant my 9year old nephew was competing against 11 and 12 year olds, so I was incredibly proud of their result.

There was a lot of interest around the cart, but unfortunately it hasn't spawned any more orders.  Oh well.

[mage0r]

When we first started looking at this project, one of the ideas that really appealed to us was the idea of making a Billy Cart (Soap-box racer for those in the US) that lived up to the expectations of our youth.  Growing up on a farm, I had built many, many carts out of various materials and various levels of danger.

My favorite was a three wheeled thing that we had clocked doing 60kph down the hill behind my parent's place.  Myself and my neighbour had a routine where you'd fly down the hill being followed by the paddock basher car.  When you finally ran out of roll, the car would drive past and you could grab a rope to be towed back to the top of the hill.

These will probably never do that sort of speed.  The wheels are way too small for one thing. Now I'm older (more responsible?) I suspect that doing a more reasonable speed is a good thing.

Argus helped me design these.  We're going for a classic racer type idea.  They were both hand built using jigsaws and rulers with the idea of producing something that could be repeatable using the cnc machine.

We succeeded and have since built a few with the machine, but they're quite large and represent a large investment in both time and materials.  The intention was to sell them but they're so big they'll always be a custom on-demand item.

The Mark I was the first one built and is the least advanced in the steering column.  It's a bit of a pity since Chixor did such a great job with the painting.  The Flames really pop!

[gentsmc]

Mad Bomber