I’ve been volunteering in a local pop-up fablab to lead laser cutting workshops aimed mostly at children. A singular session only covers the absolute basics: learning how to draw in vector-based software and making a simple keychain- or name tag. But there may be groups interested in doing multiple sessions, so I have been searching for a small but fun project that takes things to the third dimension, while still providing ample customization and personalisation options. After all I want them to use their own imagination as much as possible.

I myself ended up with the most unoriginal idea ever though: a rubberband car. But hey, why reinvent the wheel? There’s a reason these are often used as a beginner project. I searched for some files online, of which I made 3 prototypes ranging from extremely simple to overengineered.

The most basic one required M4 hardware to assemble. Not a dealbreaker per sé, but in the end it also didn’t work as expected, so I quickly scrapped that one and didn’t even care to take pictures of it.

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The second one is simple but effective. It works as good as you can expect I guess… I’m sure I can tweak the rubberband tension a bit or add some weight to get it to stick to the floor better.

The third version has a flywheel and a lot of gearing. It works very well, but it is too much of a hassle to assemble with children I wager. So this one was more of a proof of concept I personally wanted to try, rather than a viable option for the workshop.

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So, The drag racer it is. And I plan to draw a couple of other car shapes based off the same chassis, so they can choose which starting shape they want to work from. The only thing left is show a short video of both the latter designs in action. I apologize for my cat licking it’s balls ;-).