No. 472009.10.21

Non-Power Cart Race

Hi there, it's Uchida.

Nowadays, I feel autumn has really come.
It's been a month since the hustle and bustle of the Japan Championship in the Amusement Machine Show, and I feel everything has settled down a bit, too. But recently I've been bugged constantly by Mr. Yamamoto so-and-so's unreasonable requests.



Now, this time, I ran off from the Future Lab and participated in something like a race.
I called it a race, but it was actually "rolling down a slope with a non-power cart."

The other day, there was an event similar to the one mentioned above staged by a certain beverage manufacturer in Odaiba. So we got together a team of volunteers from within our company and participated in this event.
Tournaments applying the same rules as this one have been held all over the world, and I heard that in Japan this was the first one to be held.
Having once designed the game machines, Uchida participated in the race as a mechanic.

As for the cart of our team, we acquired a used four-wheeled buggy called an ATV.



Then, we took out its engine, transmission, and other parts to leave it without any power.



Then, we put on the outer covering that we had prepared separately.



Yes, it's "Edamame." We basically made it ourselves.

The other participants' carts varied widely, from the ones focusing on speed to the ones focusing on design. Among them, I even saw a cart whose design was focused so much that its running performance wasn't really considered.
Just looking at the paddock was fun.

On the race day, the number of participating carts was around 80. Since our turn to run was toward the end, we had quite a long time to wait.
Then it happened after we pumped up the cart tires.
We pumped up the tires to around 3.5 kilos to be stretched tight. (This was for the effect of reducing the surface area touching the ground and to reduce the rolling resistance by having as higher air pressure as possible.)

On that day, the weather was good. We left those tires in the condition mentioned above for a while...



Oh my! The tire had blown. (sweat)
Since that tire was one of the ones on the side of the sun, it seemed that the inside air had been heated up and expanded owing to the heat of the sun, and it had blown.
Gosh, how powerful is the power of the air!

Since we had a spare tire, we used this to save the day. In this kind of event, similar kinds of problems always occur.


For the race, our cart was able to finish the course at a performance level which was hard to believe had come from a group of amateurs.
As a mechanic, it's a success if a cart finishes the course without any problems, and it'll be a great success if it does a good run.

It's quite a lot faster than you think.



Since it was the first event, the slope was relatively gentle.
I heard that it is being considered to use a slope which can generate more speed for the next event. I'd like to participate in the second event and the ones after that.


This time, it wasn't a game, and it was an actual car (I mean cart) to be customized. But whether the customizing is for actual cars or just for cars in a game, cars customized (remodeled) by yourself are good, aren't they?
Reading the opinions received by Mr. Fukusuke in the Opinion Box saying, "The appearance of my car is like this!" I deeply felt every player shared the same feeling.


Well, I'll finish up here this time.
See you around.



(Original article in Japanese released on 2009.10.21)