The best junkyard wars are, in my opinion, when two different ideas compete as much as the two teams. Two types of concrete mixers I'm familiar with are the batch mixer and the continous, or drum, mixer. Variations the teams could control include the power source and size of the mixer. The challange is to pour as long a side walk (leveled to preset frames)in an hour as possible given a pile of sand, a hose, a pallet of cement sacks, and of course a mixer. This idea should require minimal "salting" of the junkyard, two different (but easy to understand) methods, and allows for a balance of machine building and machine using. Additionally concrete has a long history (and has been used to build interesting things) so the interspaced educational cuts would be intersting, easy to produce, and easy to understand.

-- Devin T. Ross (dross@telerama.com), February 02, 2001

Answers

Devin

I agree, in fact I submitted this idea on this page a week or so ago.

My idea is they have to pour something, a sidewalk maybe. But I'd rather it be just a cube they have to fill, so that they won't have to actually work the concrete, just pour it.

The race would be they'd have to go over here to get the sand, cement, rocks and water. Then mix it and then travel a hundred yards or so to make the pour.

This would involve making a mixer, something to transport it and the ability to pour it.

Your idea of a side walk is good, it would involved the ability to pour out a little at a time but the crew would have to do a lot of work on each end. I think this would be a blast. For those who don't know how to work with concrete, it usually works them and is so funny till you get the nack of it.

-- Richard James Retey (theswampie@cs.com), February 02, 2001.

Sorry I missed your suggestion - guess my search wasn't very complete.

Still, I think the idea is good, and could move the show back from the high tech edge it has taken recently to its more creative roots.

One reason I thought of a sidewalk was that of all the pouring I've done a sidewalk is by far the easiest to settle and level. If forms were already set (in fairness they need to be), then the distribution and leveling should go quickly (relative to concrete work of course) and only require one team member, or two part time.

The other thing I liked about a sidewalk is that it doesn't use that much concrete, so progress of the team would be easily to see/measure in sidewalk length. I like the progress of the teams to be relatively clear in the longer battles.

-- Devin T. Ross (dross@telerama.com), February 05, 2001.