Drivers Start Your Engines, And Eat!
Peeling out has a completely new connotation when the automobile is edible.
Tuesday's assignment for the freshman engineering students included a sprinkle of spaghetti, a pinch of pickle, and a crumble of candy bar. Mix it altogether and you get an edible car. Let's roll.
Teams had 20 minutes to assemble a car. They also kept track of per-unit cost, ranging from 30 or 40 cents to pricey foreign models in the $3 to $4 range.
Pretzels proved to be popular axles. Graham crackers, rice krispie cookies and sandwich bread seemed ready made for the chassis. And wheels of fudge stripes, life savers and cheese rounds gave the cars a chance – merely a chance – to move.
Teams pulled out all the stops, and carrots, and candy bars, and sour cream, and M&Ms, and peanut butter as they built their automobiles. Nearing the end of the 20 minutes, one team member yelled out: "Wait. Don't forget the gummy bears!" Every edible car needs edible passengers.
Once built, the cars were sent down a plexiglass ramp and onto a long runway. Some cars sputtered to a halt at the bottom of the ramp like peanuts on newly pulled taffy. Others rolled as smooth as milk chocolate out along the runway. One handsomely designed Snickers-mobile zipped out of the starting gates but made a left turn off the runway, careening off the table and onto the carpeted floor below. Half-baked wheels went bouncing.
Where to measure from?
"Here, it left a crumb when it went vertical," said one student.
Maximum distance rolling on the track was one of the criteria for a winning car, but even more important was whether the team could eat the car after having raced it.
On that score, a minimalist car – sort of the edible car version of a Mini Cooper – made of four Life Savors, a couple of uncooked spaghetti noodles and two baby carrot sticks may have had the edge.
The team that used an unpeeled banana? Not so much.
Contacts
Charlie Alison, executive editor
University Relations
479-575-6731,
calison@uark.edu