We heave returned at last from that great state of Texas and come back from Maker Faire with 5 - that's right ... count em'... 5 blue ribbons for our Art Golf, mini-golf course!





We had tested and played parts of the course, but had not put the whole thing together until we arrived in Austin. And it all worked great! The big and little kids at the faire loved the course so much, we saw the same people over and over again throughout both days- coming back fro more.





The whole course took a few hours to put together from it's packed up state, and took even less time to break back down and pack up again. Because we made the course to do so , the "clam shell" play fields clip together and come apart with incredible ease.





The "props" for the course either lay on top of the play fields with no assembly, or they clip into the existing system like the play fields themselves.





This system for the course enables us to make more tracks and obstacles in the future that can just clip into the existing tracks. What we want to see happen is a full art / mini-golf "show" where we make more of these tracks and hand them off to other artists, designers and geeks, and have each make their own "hole", then get back together for a full mini golf course and Art Show. It would be interactively- awesome! We are going to work on making that happen next year- so keep an eye on www.artgolf.org for future updates.





And because the whole thing folds up for shipping so well, it could move around from venue to venue, growing and changing! The current course of 9 tracks, and 9 "props" and obstacles folds up into 3 stacks about 6ft tall and 4ft wide.





Feel free to contact us with any questions about ArtGolf for your next party!

Yes!
We have begun play testing the fields.... and it is awesome!

Here we have the castle - complete with draw bridge that goes up and down, being play tested by a BWC employee...

and it's awesome.

Next... here is "The Rat's Nest"...
This field has a lift that you putt your ball into. You pull on the handle and you ball is lifted to three holes. It goes through one of the holes and into one of three tubes that wind around each other and shoot you out the other side. (note: you wanna go through the middle tube! it leaves you with the best standing)

And lastly for this set... there is the Pachinko Machine.

Here, you putt up the ramp and your ball is shot through the maze of Pachinko-ness, then lands in one of three holes:

hooray!
More testing tomorrow!

The ART GOLF project ships in just a few days... and we are just about ready to start play testing and fixing all the little bugs. I sure hope there aren't too many little bugs!!!

Here are a few of the things we did in the past couple of days...

We finished the design of the Pachinko play field,

and started putting the whole thing together.

We also completed the Shrink Ray design. This part of the track is great. Well... all of the tracks are great, but this one is funny "ha ha".
How it works:
You put your ball into this box. Of course, here you are seeing the innards of the machine that is THE MINIATURIZATION RAY (which is why it's funny "ha ha". Get it? Miniature golf!? Fine. Never mind.) The inside will all be covered up and all the player sees is the large hole in which they putt their ball. Their ball then goes into a channel beneath the field.

Once they putt their ball into THE MINIATURIZATION RAY, they pull the handle. This "activates" THE MINIATURIZATION RAY (did i mention that you have to say that in a loud spooky scientist voice when it's all in caps like that? Well, you do.) The handle releases a small white marble... as the ball has just been "miniturized".

The "miniature ball" is released onto it's new play field..... Texas.

It takes a really long time to get across Texas... and we are re-creating that wonderful experience here.

Once you putt all the way across Texas, you putt your marble-ball into another hole in a box on the opposite side of Texas, and pull the lever on that box. This time your ball that has been waiting for you this whole time within the second box, is released onto the next green from the RE-ENLARGE-O-RAY.

And that is the the saga of the Shrink Ray.

We also wired up the Spinning Tube and got that working.

More to come as we flush the little bugs out and start to play test these babies!

Yes- it is less than a week away that we need to ship this course out!!
We are pretty much on schedule, though we have been bad about taking progress photos to capture the work in action.
The majority of the "obstacles" have been built and packed away before I got a chance to take a photo.
We are still working on some of the more mechanical stuff- which i will document when it is further along.

We are moving so fast that the photos i do have for this post are already old and dated.... like three days ago!
But I shall show them anyway.

MARVEL!
at the giant red tube!

WONDER!
at what the hell all this stuff is going to be!

FEAR!
of the giant dinosaur! He's so huge!

Yup. tongue and groove. heh heh.
But seriously awesome when making these clam shell mini golf courses that need to section together.





As you can see we put clips on the connecting joints so we can close them tightly after they are hooked together.





All the tracks are now assembled with all their hardware (hinges and clips) and ready for the obstacles!
Back to all the motors, turntables and tikis.....

We are cruising along with the ArtGolf courses. The bare-bones play fields have been modeled up and are all cut out. We are waiting on some hardware to put them together in their final "clamshell" formations. Hopefully those hinges will show up today!

Once the fields are put together into their 2 piece clam shell forms, they will get the Astroturf on them.

And they will look like this:




here are some of the half fields, waiting to be out together and have that turf on top be adhered to their surface.
Each full clamshell is 7 feet long and 3.5ft wide. And each "hole" is three clamshells.





The fields have been designed with a "tongue and groove" like system on the sides, so they will lock together easily. If we have time we will be making some extra ones that can plug into the currently planned ones to make the tracks longer.
Here are the current designs for the fields.




There are three holes: Adventure, Classic, and Science.
The Adventure hole has a jungle to go through in the beginning, a spinning tube and a rotating hole at the end.
The Science hole has a logic gate, and a miniaturization box...
And the Classic hole is a tribute to mini - golf with features like the windmill, the volcano and the castle!


But our windmill is a power generating windmill.....




and our volcano is a TIKI volcano!




And.... of course we will have a giant dinosaur. Here's the little test one:



The real one will be 10 ft tall!!
WOOHOO!

As with any good project.... the first thing you must do is background research!
Luckily we have been "researching" mini-golf for years.

but, well.... a little more couldn't hurt.
Right?

See all the "research" photos on our Flickr set!