bringing your work home

**sorry about the pictures chunk and then the text chunk--I have no idea what's up with Blogger tonight and I'd rather go to bed than fix it!**

For the past year or so, Neil has been supervising undergraduate students who are building electric go-karts. The university here is well known for the standard go-kart Grand Prix that it hosts every spring; Neil's teams have been organizing the first electric go-kart race, which takes place this weekend. One of the decisions the teams made was to have the race be a family-friendly affair--their goal is to attract young eco-concious families, rather than the drunken college students that gather at the other race. So with that in mind, one of the events they'll be holding is a mini race for children, using electric Big Wheels. And some remote controlled cars.

Only problem? They needed someone to test it all out beforehand to see how easily the kids could operate the Big Wheels and time how long the race should take. We had some very, very, very happy volunteers tonight zooming up and down our street (they may be visiting the racetrack tomorrow for more time trials).  I must admit, I was totally jealous. 

And after the kids were in bed, Neil and I broke out the Ferrari Enzo and the Tesla Roadster and had ourselves some fun (we even went into the girls' room and tried to wake them up to play with us, since the cars have operational headlights/brakelights/turn signals and it was totally sweet-looking in the dark).

So. Much. Fun. Too bad everything has to go back tomorrow!  Although we may volunteer our garage as a storage space...