By Jaden Atkins
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
Engineers of different backgrounds and demographics took to the streets of Baltimore Saturday to compete in the annual Kinetic Sculpture Race. Well over a hundred people across 30 teams participated in the daylong event.
“The community is amazing,” said Julie Rogers, a teacher at The Park School of Baltimore. “Everybody is coming together over the love of this silliness.”
Rogers enters this competition yearly with a sculpture crafted by her and her students over the course of the school year. Their sculpture this year took inspiration from Winnie The Pooh, featuring the fictional bear prominently.
“We’re the Park Bruins, so we always have a bear theme,” Rogers said. “Last year we were the Bear Necessities…and this year we’re Winnie The Pooh.”
This year’s theme, “Fantasy & Folly,” inspired engineers to bring their wackiest, most fantastical creations to the competition.
Spectators and staff members also got in on the fun, with several people dressing up in accordance with the theme. Ellen Owens, the executive director of the American Visionary Art Museum, came dressed as “Glinda the Good Witch.”
“I’m not Ellen Owens today, I’m actually Glinda the Good Witch,” Owens said. “Ellen is in the closet upstairs. She’ll return on Monday.”
Among the slew of returners was a collection of first-time participants and viewers. One of the new engineers was Phillip Harmon. Harmon, who was a part of the crew for the “Baltimore Row Castle,” worked on the sculpture and piloted alongside several others on race day.
“I’ve known about the race for a while and I think it’s just a fabulous fun time,” said Harmon. “So the opportunity for the people I work with to join and be a part of it I thought was great.”
The Kinetic Sculpture Race began over 60 years ago when California artist Hobart Brown modified his sons tricycle before racing it against other people in his area with similar creations. The original race blossomed into a three-day-long event where people on the West Coast raced their Kinetic Sculptures.
Eventually a version of the race was brought over to Baltimore by the founder of the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM), Rebecca Hoffberger, and it has since become known as the East Coast Championship.
The race attracted many spectators and political figures from around Baltimore City.
Maryland House of Delegates member Luke H. Clippinger presided over the event alongside several other people as the “judges,” who were in charge of choosing the winners for several of the awards given out at the end of the day.
Zeke Cohen, the president of the Baltimore City Council, was also in attendance. His opening remarks celebrating the city’s progress, particularly the reduction in homicide rates, which Cohen said reached record lows within the last month.
Pre-race, the area around 800 Key Hwy boomed with music from the Baltimore Ravens pep band and featured a handful of other rituals, most prominent of which being the blessing of “de feet.”
The race began at 10 a.m. and stretched 15 miles around Baltimore City. Each team was required to build a sculpture capable of traversing several different types of terrain, including water, mud and sand.
“The mud we usually get stuck in because this thing is so big and so heavy,” said engineer Philip Van Werkhoven. “But this year we actually were able to go through it.”
Van Werkhoven and his team “Ant-thropology” are mainstays of the competition, attending the race over the past few years.
From year to year, they maintain the foundational aspects of the sculpture. They build over top of the foundation to meet the criteria of that year’s theme while also making small tweaks to improve the framework of their sculpture.
Beyond the fun that comes with building these sculptures Van Werkhoven also values the entertainment and the spectacle of the event.
“Everybody’s looking, everybody’s cheering, everybody’s just having a good time and a lot of fun,” he said.
Spectators followed proceedings at several locations, including from the start point at the American Visionary Art Museum, but also from Canton Waterfront Park right on the Baltimore Harbor and a number of other spots around the city.
“It’s just joy, it’s raw joy,” said spectator Eric Gottshall. “Baltimore is such a wonderful and silly place. This is just the embodiment of it.”