Cars as raw materials |
May 28th, 2012 |
quito, tech |
Julia and I visited a town in rural
Ecuador this weekend. One thing that struck me was how many things
were made out of cars. There was a small fair with some rides, and
one of them was a ship that would
swing back and forth. As we approached it, I kept hearing the
sound of an engine revving up and then tires squealing. I thought I
was hearing someone practicing peeling out, but it was actually the
ship ride. Power came from a repurposed and rearranged car, where the
operator sat in a driver's seat and shifted the transmission between
forward and reverse depending on which direction the swing was
currently moving. Then they'd give it some gas (two pedals: gas and
clutch, not brake) and a drive wheel would spin up. That wheel pushed
the bottom of the boat and accelerated it. The controls, along with
the engine clearly from a car:
At the same fair was a "gusanito" (little worm), a ride where people sat in a series of trailers and would be pulled all around the town. The front segment was a Land Cruiser dressed up as a worm head:
We took a "tarabita" (aerial tram) across a valley to see some waterfalls. It hung from one strong cable while a car engine pulled it with a second loop of thinner cable:
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