What is it? The Bad Asstronauts Crawler is a tiny art car inspired by the giant vehicle that NASA uses to transport rockets from the assembly building to the launch pad. It’s designed as an e-bike trailer that will be towed out into the inky depths of the open Black Rock Desert in the middle of the night, to surprise and delight fellow space travelers with a fully equipped DJ setup and club-quality sound. Where is the money going? See the full budget here. It's almost done, but she tips the scales at just past $5,000 Besides DJ sets, potential uses of the Crawler include: In-motion audio: like the Pied Piper, the Crawler can provide the soundtrack for a group biking across the playa. The audio system is designed to swivel, offering both high quality stereo in DJ booth mode, or 180-degree coverage while in motion! Art Poupup Tour: we pick an art piece that doesn’t yet have an audio component, and play a short set inspired by that piece, to give it the soundtrack it deserves. Then we pedal off to the next one! Trash Fence Karaoke: stumble upon Black Rock City’s most remote Karaoke setup and sing till the sun rises. Daft Punk Punk’d Set: it’s a running joke at Burning Man to tell gullible virgins that Daft Punk is playing at the trash fence (a very remote part of the event area) at sunrise. Let’s make it happen! Why I’m Asking For Funding I hate asking for money. Building an art car is, unfortunately, crazy expensive. Some of the fancier camps literally pour millions of dollars into theirs. The Crawler is designed to be as frugal as possible while still being awesome. It uses an e-bike as the motive power to make storage & transpo easier. There were no off-the-shelf bike trailers tall enough to get the speakers to the audio-optimal height of at least 6’ in the air, so I had to design and build my own from scratch. The desert is an unforgiving place, with frequent intense dust storms and imperfect roads, so it has to be designed to withstand abuse. I had hoped to keep the budget for this project under $3,000, using used/recycled components as much as possible, but I’m now just shy of $5,000 (all self-funded) and 100+ hours of work in. This doesn’t count the regular (and considerable) cost and logistics of Burning Man itself. It’d be a huge help to recover even a fraction of that! A Little Background My first Burning Man experience was last year, and I was blown away by the explosion of creativity on display. As someone who enjoys making things and DJing, I knew I had to build something. One of the things that makes Burning Man special is that the event is 100% created by the participants. The temporary city is huge—a pentagon one mile on each side, with a population of 80,000–and it’s strewn with 500+ artworks scattered across the desert. The camps are arranged into an open C shape, with a big mirror-flat open area in the middle, and even more open area beyond that (“deep playa”). Hundreds of art cars, aka “mutant vehicles” because they’re required to no longer resemble any other road-worthy thing, slowly cruise the open and deep playa. Anywhere you stand, you can look 360 degrees around and see a wild array of light, sculpture, and motion. There’s everything from two-story castles, to dragons, to sheep, to an enormous Golden Gate Bridge wandering the desert. My favorite moments of 2024 were wandering around and stumbling upon art and popup events in Deep Playa. Our camp, The Bad Asstronauts, is home to over 20 DJs from a range of genres, so a space themed musical vehicle makes sense. Current Progress The blueprints are complete, the parts are ordered, and the assembly is in progress! Next up is testing and resolving any unforeseen issues... and paying off the massive credit card bill. Stats & Specs Club-quality QSC speakers and 18” JBL subwoofer with 3500W of combined peak power and 33Hz-20kHz range 5 ft of stereo L/R separation and 6.5 ft height for optimal soundstage Speakers ride on height-adjustable rails to lower the center of gravity for stability while in motion Adjustable, amiable 90˚ to 180˚ sound field for narrow (performance mode) or wide (travel mode) dispersion Pioneer DJ controller and dust-proofed M1 Air Mac MiniRig 80W combined stereo DJ booth monitor speakers Sennheiser wireless mic system + iPad display for karaoke Bluetooth receiver for in-motion audio 6h+ of runtime from 3.5 kWh of custom-built battery packs and 1.8 kW inverter; no noisy/smelly generator 750W e-bike motor, 650 Wh traction battery, also capable of drawing backup power from the audio/lighting system batteries, capable of up to 3h of maximum-level pedal assist cruising 40 ft of LED strip lighting with animated crawler tank tread, and custom built rocket flame effect and power distribution system Custom printed, acoustically transparent, space-themed speaker and trailer body fabric wrap Rides on the biggest and most complex mechanical system I’ve ever designed: a bespoke bike trailer made from 60ft of lightweight extruded aluminum with 300 lb cargo capacity and kickstands for standalone operation Ideas for future improvements Tank tread electroluminescent glow wire detailing Area lighting/laser system for top bar Deployable battery-powered rocket-themed light tubes Electronic signboard to encourage interactivity (ie “TRASH FENCE KARAOKE!”)
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