Rocket Production x PAVE x GlobalShop 2018
It was a wonderful experience attending the 2018 Chicago GlobalShop with our designed race car exhibited in the booth for Rocket Production and PAVE.
The project we were given was to design a race car that would incorporate several of the components of Rocket Productions’ products. The goal was to create an environment that would attract people with lights, sound, and motion at GlobalShop. We decided that we would like to design with a futuristic approach. This would provide us with the freedom of using our imagination to construct a vehicle that doesn’t necessarily follow the current norms of automobile design.
Our inspiration stemmed from the Disney movie “Tron: Legacy” which takes place in a futuristic digital world. The contrast between black and neon lights in the movie gave us a glimpse into the way we would be able to use the lights to attract people to our car. The movie also depicts unconventional ways of designing vehicles that led us to design a three-wheeled car.
The idea of designing a three-wheeled race car came in part from the idea of unconventionality. It is not something that is seen on the road very often, if at all. The shape that the three wheels create if the single wheel is in the front is a triangle that is pointing forward. This design component added an element of speed to the racecar.
The process of transforming our sketches into an actual three-dimensional car was a huge challenge. One of the criteria was to construct the car in a transferable way so that it could be easily taken apart and put back together. It became a process of trial and error. We began by building each part of the car with foam core since it is a similar material to gatorboard which is what the car would be made out of. First, we thought of putting the car together using a method of making tabs to connect the various pieces so that they can be taken apart easily. We decided against that idea as it took away from the simplicity and cleanliness of the design. Instead, we decided to build the car first and then come up with a way to make it transferable later. In the original design, we did have a more organic look for the car, but with the stiff material that we were given, a more geometric approach had to be made.
When our prototype was completed and we knew what all of the parts of the car would consist of, we measured and placed each shape in an illustrator file. The file was sent to the CNC router and each shape was cut out of MDF for our final model. We did run into some challenges with the sizing and angles of the pieces. We solved this issue by going back and resizing and re-angling some of the pieces so they would fit together. When putting the pieces together we came up with the idea of using velcro as a means of making the car transferable. For example, with the hexagonal shape of the side of the car, we took an extra piece of MDF and angled it so that it would act as a wedge for the sides to stick together with velcro.
When we completed the car, we determined where to put the special effects. We decided that Rocket Production lights would be placed at the intersection of each piece. That effectively outlined the car. The car would be painted in black so that the lights would stand out. We created a futuristic cityscape backdrop behind the car.
It was a fun experience watching our imagination transform from sketch to the actual scaled car.