At Burning Man 2011, the group I led, Camp al Azar decided to try our hand at an art car. Without a lot of time and resources, we had to think cheap, light and clever. We decided a shark's fin would be a funny thing to see, apparently swimming in the flat desert playa. Here are the plans I put together and a rough visualization.
First, I designed the shape of the shark fin so it would fit over the Rhino ATV and trailer we had access to, and created a 2D diagram:
Then I built a dimension-accurate 3D model of the ATV and trailer.
Working from the 2D cross-sections, i constructed a frame and skinned it, testing for wheel and trailer swing clearance:
My concept included running glow-wire along the profile of the fin and waves, so the shark could be seen swimming in the playa at night.
And this is roughly what it should have looked like. However, due to time, materials cost and not enough light, it was quite different.
