Source: Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers
It’s not a race, mind you, it’s a Contraptor’s Rally
So explained the organizer, Shannon O’Hara AKA Major Catastrophe, at the start of the 7th Annual Obtainium Cup Rally this past Sunday (July 22nd) at Mare Island, CA. Mare Island is a neighborhood of Vallejo, Ca that was the site of the West Coast’s oldest naval shipyard until the Navy decamped in 1996.
The peninsula is now half brand-new tract homes and half industrial ghost town and, once a year, host to the Obtainium Cup Rally. Inspired by the Kinetic Grand Championship in Arcata, CA, the Obtainium Cup Rally bills itself as a “hand-built vehicle rally” but is really an excuse for municipal silliness, an old-fashioned family outing, and a focal point for the local maker community.
Competitors must not only complete the route and demonstrate artistic and engineering creativity but demonstrate creative and original problem-solving skills for a series of Challenges like the Attack of the Flying Monkeys and the Zombie Challenge; this year’s winner of the Zombie Challenge bribed the zombie brigade with brain soufflé snacks. There are rules somewhere; no one seems to remember what they are.
This year’s winner was a tribute to the local ecosystem, where osprey nest in the abandoned navy outposts and get fat every fall feasting on salmon as they return to the Napa River watershed.
Honestly, the three-feet-tall Obtainium Cup is disproportionate to the size of the event: the Rally is pretty small fry compared to its inspiration in Arcata and many other kinetic challenges around the country.
But although sponsors might dream of a bigger turnout, the event is more about the joy it generates for locals than the tourists it attracts.
That’s because the Obtainium Cup, in all its steampunkish, zombie-apocalypse, Alice in Wonderland and Skeleton Robot mashup glory, is a sign that my town is on its way back and that our future looks more fun than our recent past.
I am a 4-year veteran of the Make: staff and a resident of Vallejo, CA. Vallejo is 24 miles from San Francisco, fronts the Napa River, was twice (albeit briefly) the capital of California, and in 2008 because one of the largest U.S. cities to declare bankruptcy. It is also the most ethnically diverse city in the United States and, in recent years, a magnet to artists and Burners and makers pushed out of other Bay Area cities by insane real estate prices.
It is still struggling to overcome the bankruptcy, its reputation for high crime, and a persistent failure to thrive since the Navy base closure and the Great Recession that followed a decade later.
Obtainium Works, organizer of the Obtainium Cup, is a workshop plunked down at the edge of the once bustling downtown and a still beautiful if slightly rough-at-the-edges neighborhood of historic Victorian homes. It bills itself as a “Do It Yourself (DIY) group of tinkerers, gearheads, and steam bohemians who fabricate art out of repurposed industrial detritus.”
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