MAX Update No. 20: The Most Real Green Car at the EG

The EG was a hoot and I’m so glad I went. 

EG stands for Entertainment Gathering, as far as I can tell — I was in way over my head. It featured the most eclectic group of presenters I’ve ever seen in one bunch. My personal favorite speaker was Teller, of Penn & Teller, who spoke of how knowing how something is done does not lessen one’s appreciation of the act, even if the act is magic on stage.

Many other presentations were inspiring: One laptop per child? Good idea. Digital motion control in the arts? I’ll use those lessons to make MAX’s next body. Peter Diamondis of the X Prize Foundation? Heck yeah, but he’d already inspired me. International goofy dancing? The world’s not such a bad place, is it? But Teller renewed my dedication to open sourcing the MAX project. If there’s anything about MAX I’m not telling you, it’s not because it’s a trade secret, it’s because I haven’t figured it out yet.

MAX was well-received, partly because (as a commenter predicted in MAX Update No. 19: A Roof Over Our Heads) it was the only Auto X Prizer that got there on its own steam. The Physics Lab of Lake Havasu folks brought their “Green Giant” SUV, but they brought it on a trailer. ZAP brought a scale model of their much-anticipated Alias trike, which they maybe brought in a hatbox. Both companies have loftier goals than Kinetic Vehicles, and if the cars were being judged by projected performance, MAX would have been the loser. Instead, I was giving rides during the breaks and MAX was getting bonus points for being real.

During my talk, I described my design philosophy as minimalist, and got a good laugh with my definition: A pessimist says the glass is half empty. An optimist says the glass is half full.  A minimalist says “We’re using about twice as much glass as we need here.”