DMS is sponsoring supplies, materials, and other costs (costumes, entry fee, etc.) to enter volunteers to compete in the Coffin Race derby, on Saturday, October 26, 2024. during the Denton Day of the Dead festival. Open to all members, we are looking for help brainstorming ideas, finding solutions, testing concepts, hands on with fabrication, and much more. The idea is to incorporate as many committees as we can. We are also looking for assistance on creating a promotional display coffin racer.
So far, the discussions have been over Discord and in person. We will start posting updates here to raise awareness, recruit help, and to try to get opinions/feedback from DMS as a whole.
Currently, the meeting times have been: Saturdays at 1PM, Sundays at 5PM, and spontaneous Wednesdays at 6PM.
A good handful of people met up in Denton on June 15th near midnight with a few different bicycles.
We got lap times with different weight, wheel and tire types and found a lighter weight person could get a higher speed from a push, but Randy calculated there was only a ~5% speed advantage. The coffin won’t be made exclusively for the smallest and lightest driver as a result.
Jason brought the Motorsports’ GPS and found the velocity after the initial push was all identical. It also shows a staggering 1.13G and a top speed of 32.5kph. The track has a 248ft elevation drop at 5°.
Randy picked up some 1020 tubing and a single 4130 tube. The idea is to fillet braze all the tubes together, similar to some bicycle and motorcycle frames. The goal is to use oxy-fuel (acetylene or propane) instead of welding, and teach this method to all volunteers.
“Disco is Dead” seems to be the agreed upon theme
We mocked up a rough shape with PVC pipes, and are using 26" wheels with road tires. It can be found at the far corner near powdercoating.
This is the current rough model of the car, and we find the headtube angle will most likely be around 28°-35° from the x-axis, and may introduce weird steering:
I find it almost impossible to ride at less than 7mph, and does not steer linearly. Above 7mph, it handles decently for going in a straight line, but more tests needs to be done.
The next session, the fork assembly needs to be figured out and then machined, and the rear frame section can be notched and brazed.
We did some test runs in Denton late saturday night 11-2AM. Nothing broke or fell off, brakes worked well enough to avoid the occasional pedestrian or vehicle that crossed onto the race hill during a downhill run.
We will be decorating wednesday night.
This is a pic of @sixshot357 just before his first test run, Sam and @nugen will be pushers.
We managed to be picked in the first race at high noon, against a team that has won the race at least 3 times, so we should get a pretty good feel for what to expect the rest of the day.
For those of you that did not see the coffin race updates on Discord
DMS had a great day
Made it to the final two and lost by a nose.
Great effort by the Metal Shop, motorsports team, and automotive.
Being there watching the action was a blast and I can tell you there was a lot of buzz around Dallas Makerspace in general and the coffin, specifically
Hey all! Just finished producing a mini documentary on the build process and race day for the City of Denton. DMS is heavily featured. Would’ve loved to make it twice and long to fit in every detail but hope yall enjoy! It’ll be on the City’s facebook page later this evening as well.
I’ll be uploading a seperate video soon with just the race footage to enjoy!
@zashcraft That is a really cool video, you definately got the point across that we have awesome tools and that we had fun building it and racing it. Thanks so much for not showing any bias whatsoever in promoting the makerspace even though you are a member, I’m sure it was just coincidence that you spent extra time on photos and videos and a ton of editing time to make that video.
I manage the social media for DMS! Anyway you can share this for us to upload via YouTube and do you have a format for IG (portrait)? Maybe via Dropbox?
This is great and we’ll be sure to tag you back!
