This year's competition brought us a lot of creative designs. We saw drive systems and frame designs that we would not even have imagined. Some were not only creative, but competative. In general the more complex a mechanism is the more potential points of failure it contains. While we saw very complex designs that this held true for, we also saw relatively simple designs break down. This was mainly due to the limitations of paper as construction material. The various paper products that have been used can and have built strong, sturdy vehicles, but building one requires, careful planning, luck and a willingness to test and rebuild. This is especially true where ever moving parts like steering and rotating axles are concerned.

How the vehicle performs on the race course is only a part of the competition and may be less important then the lessons learned and the experience of actually bringing a project all the way from concept to creation. These same challanges will await many of our students when they move out of the class room and into industry.

Team “God Knows”

Team “God Knows” from Spokane Community College built their tricycle to last . It took on the race course and was ready for more. We can not emphasize enough to students that they should make their vehicle strong and test it. One word of caution though, over testing has damaged good vehicles before they hit the course.

I would like to thank all the students and faculty who made this year's competition such a great one. I also want to mention all the schools that sent teams:
Eastern Washington University, Green River Community College, Spokane Community College and Spokane Falls Community College.

If you are a student or faculty member and are looking into this competition for the first time, I hope you will consider joining us in the year 2000. For those of you who participated in our competition, I look forward to seeing you and your new designs.

Once again, thanks to all.
Sincerely
Keith Turpin