When the 24 students on the Arbutus Middle School Kinetic Sculpture Race Team learned about the theme for the 18th annual Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race toward the beginning of the school year — myths and monsters — they quickly began to brainstorm ideas for their entry.
Tressa Salava, a sixth-grader, ultimately came up with the idea that would lead to the team's creation.
What's the one thing everyone in a group of middle schoolers could agree upon that stresses them out?
Middle school.
For sixth-graders, there's plenty of change — and stress — when they enter the school for their first year.
"In elementary school, everything is bright and easy and fun," Tressa said, "and you come in here and there's all these people towering over you and there's a bunch of schoolwork and crazy stuff getting thrown at you. It's pretty much a nightmare to most of us."
So, the team decided to create a brain then have several demons that represent the school day come out of it.
"We took the embodiment of middle school, which is basically a nightmare for a lot of middle schoolers, and we wired them to the brain," said eighth-grader Alana Parker.
Alana, along with eighth-grader Yoonmi Oh, created a cottony combat cloud, inspired by the dust clouds that settle when cartoon characters fight.
They acknowledged that fights happen frequently among the teenagers at the school, even if they are just small verbal disputes. Also, when Alana read teen books as an elementary school student, the fights were most memorable.
"It's one of the major things that people fear," she said.
The combat cloud is one of several monsters illustrated on the brain. Others, so far, include an "F" representing failure, a social media monster, , and characters representing fights and bullies.
"It's so relatable to kids' everyday lives," said Michael Guarraia, the teacher who advises the team. "They had no problems coming up with the villains they wanted to use."
This is the fifth year the Arbutus Middle School team has put together an entry for the Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race, which is set for Saturday, May 7 at Baltimore's Harbor from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
When Guarraia first saw the race, he knew he wanted to get involved in some way. As he was thinking about how to participate, he decided having the middle schoolers get involved through an after-school club was a good way to integrate engineering into their education.
As eighth-grader Brigid Flynn looked at a list of clubs the school offered, the team appealed to her. She considered joining a gaming club, but wanted to be involved in one that would produce something tangible.
"Most [of the other clubs I considered] looked like things that wouldn't have results," she said. "This, you worked your hardest in order to do this race and at the end, you could see your sculpture going through the race and see how it works."
Brigid created a locker monster for the brain, her interpretation of a kid being shoved inside a locker. The hinges are eyes, the nose is the combination lock and the door opens to reveal what's inside its mouth — a disheveled doll.
"She's pretty messed up," she said. "She's got a bit of blood on her."
Flynn hasn't seen this happen in school, but she knows its stereotypical of the middle school experience. She doesn't expect to see it either. For one thing, the lockers are too narrow to fit anyone, she said.
Still, it was her way to emulate the bullying experience, something that any middle schooler might worry about.
Since the beginning of the school year, the race team has met mostly every other week to put together the structure, which measures at about 10 feet long, 10 feet tall and 6 feet wide, and about 300 pounds.
The frame of the vehicle was designed by students five years ago, when the club started, and was welded together by Eric Bouchat, of Bouchat Industries, a welding, fabrication and machining business in Halethorpe. Bouchat did much of the work pro bono, Guarraia said. While all four seats have pedals to control the structure's speed, only the driver's seat has a steering wheel.
The brain, itself, is made of metal conduit ribs supporting a mesh of poultry wire. A layer of spray foam insulation was put over it and then painted pink after it dried.
Sixth-grader Harekrushna Das was all smiles after he put his Pastafararian character on the brain. He's one of four students who created characters — eight in all — for what he called the food battle. The star of the battle is named Food Vader, a group effort which features an fabric apple for a head and assorted fruits and vegetables for limbs on a pizza body.
His creation resembles a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Harekrushna is vegetarian and lactose intolerant, which he admits is not a great combination when it comes to the traditional school lunch.
"A lot of people hate the cafeteria food, so the food fights back," he said. "I'm one of them."
He wanted to join the team to meet new people and work on team building. He's happy with the end result.
"Things could get really tense," he said, "but it always ends up good."
Tressa's contribution is the demonic daydream monster. She doesn't deny the fact that she'll occasionally think about something other than schoolwork in the classroom.
As she was putting the finishing touches on her creation, she reflected on the project. She was content with how her vision turned out.
"We worked so hard on it," she said. "It was really hard to do, but it came out pretty good in the end."
The race is sponsored and run by the American Visionary Art Museum. The teams will race their entries along the Baltimore Harbor and face a variety of obstacles and terrains.
The sculptures must be human powered. There are several rules regarding to safety and fairness, but some are simply in good fun — each team must carry a homemade sock creature at all times.
There are several awards given over the course of the day, including the Golden Dinosaur Award for most memorable breakdown, the Golden Flipper Award for best water entry or the Next to the Last Award, which is self explanatory. As the event's website puts it, "that way, the end of the race can get pretty exciting."
One award many have an eye on is the Grand Mediocre Champion, for finishing exactly in the middle of the pack, Guarraia said.
At the end of the day, survival is the key word. During last year's race, a team member crashed the entry into a sign. The team finished the race, earning the Spirit of the Glorious Founder Award for perseverance.
No matter the result, the team is excited to take part for another year.
"We're not really in it for the awards," Guarraia said. "If we can get this thing done and we can participate and finish the race, we'll be thrilled."
IF YOU GO
Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race
When: 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday, May 7
Where: Baltimore Harbor – full map at KineticBaltimore.com
Web: kineticbaltimore.com
Cost: Free