Rick Rosenkilde doesn't see a burgeoning market for the final product -- an adult-sized tricycle weighing roughly 50 pounds that relies on heavy-duty cardboard, a bike chain, sprockets and gobs and gobs of glue.

He can imagine an advertisement: "Cardboard trike. Put together in five weeks. Needs $50 worth of glue."

Someday, perhaps, Rosenkilde and fellow engineering students at Everett and Edmonds community colleges will design bridges to cross or airplanes to fly, but for now they are content with Flintstone-looking trikes and other contraptions.

Teams from both colleges hope their designs -- as well as glues -- hold up all the way to the finish line today when they pedal through a 300-meter obstacle course at Eastern Washington University in Cheney.

More than a dozen teams from Washington, Oregon and Idaho will compete for trophies, plaques, medallions and self-satisfaction. Everett will send two teams, and Edmonds one.

Their task was to build a human-powered vehicle that is 90 percent paper product by weight. During time trials, points will be taken away if any part of the rider's body touches the ground.

Those who design the machines ride the machines.

"(It) can be quite entertaining if you try to picture a 250-pound guy racing on a tricycle made out of cardboard," said Keith Turpin, director of the Human Powered Paper Vehicle competition.

Typically, the vehicles take less than $50 to design and assemble -- often much less. Most of the materials are recyclables, he said.

Paper products take many forms from construction paper to thick carpet rolls.

As a student at EWU, he always wanted an engineering competition that would allow college students to come up with creative designs on a shoestring budget. What emerged seven years ago was the paper vehicle competition.

All the time and trial and error is worth it, said Nick Malmstead and Tyler Mohr, who built a different version of the trike for the competition last year.

Technical lessons have been valuable, but equally important has been learning to apply their engineering skills as part of a team, they said.

A year ago, Mohr envisioned his team impressing the competition with a fast time. It didn't. Mechanical problems forced the riders to use their feet on the floor to move.

This year, Mohr isn't thinking about other schools He just wants his team to reach the finish line intact.

"We have put so much time in on this it will be good to be done," he said. "You don't want to go over there to be embarrassed."

The teams face several challenges with their contraptions. Mostly, they want to try them out but don't want to wear them out. Paper fatigues quickly. Too much testing, and it falls apart; too little testing, and problems aren't detected early enough to fix them.

"A lot can go wrong," team member Chris Armstrong said.

There are two parts to the competition: the vehicle performance and a presentation to judges.

The Edmonds Community College team is also putting the finishing touches on its vehicle.

For Tyler Thompson, Richard Calhoun, Dylan Soames, John Jolly and Nichole Moe, the project has been a test of ingenuity. Just creating durable, round wheels was a challenge.

"You have to learn about material, how it is strong and ways to make it do what you want," Thompson said.

While Everett relied on epoxy, Edmonds opted for Elmer's wood glue.

"It's cheap," Thompson said. "We need to use so much of it, and we don't have the money to buy a barrel of epoxy."

Edmonds and Everett have more in common than tricycles. Their coaches share the last name of Davishahl. Eric Davishahl is an engineering instructor at EvCC, and his wife, Jill Davishahl, teaches the same courses at EdCC.

Both say the hands-on element of the competition is good preparation for the real world.

"They get a lot of problem-solving, trying to figure out where all the weak points are and where they need to beef it up," Eric Davishahl said.

With all due respect to her husband, Jill Davishahl said she will have no problem remembering her allegiance.

"I'm definitely rooting for my team," she said.

Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.