photo: Aufdencamp
This year at Maker Faire we’re psyched to be featuring the evolution of El Arbol, our flagship music bike, and inviting Maker Faire goers to help complete it by adding leaves to its Canopy. Over the course of the 2-day Maker Faire, the Canopy will fill up with drawings of projects and inventions, Pedal Powered Spin Art, scrap paper decorations, and other lightweight scraps from around the Faire.
In the works since 2008, El Arbol is a 15′ tall rolling tree with several unique features including the first-ever deployable ‘roots’, shown deployed above. These 6′ wide stabilizers (please don’t call them training wheels) swing out on command, allowing the tree to remain upright at low speeds and stop signs, and to be used as a Pedal Power generator.
El Arbol also features a state of the art 2-person Pedal Powered Stage with amazing audio clarity, thanks to the vertically stacked speakers in its trunk. Two people pedaling can provide plenty of energy to amplify a band’s performance to an audience of hundreds.
Process:
We’ll display a series of poster-sized photos from the making of El Arbol on the sides of our 10×10 tent, engaging Faire goers in the creative process that goes into a multi-year project like El Arbol. We hope to inspire Faire goers to think big and get inspired for their own projects in the coming year.
Over the last four years, Faire goers have seen Rock The Bike progress from making party bikes like the Choprical Fish to creating a 6-bike Pedal Powered Stage. Now we are setting our sights on creating a Pedal Powered circus using El Arbol as the equivalent of the circus tent.
photo: Aufdencamp
Above, testing out the rear branch of El Arbol as an aerial rig. We plan to feature some of the aerial artists in our crew at this year’s Maker Faire.