Bikehome

July 2018

I collaborated with a team of other makers at a Make-a-thon called Red Bull Creation to build a bicycle-towed RV. This is designed to be a lightweight but fully livable RV that can be made largely from scavenged parts. It's built to make a point about the plight of the homeless in the Bay Area, which has been dire for as long as I've lived her.e

The walls are made of Coroplast, which is the same corrugated cardboard material that is used in political campaign signs. These are easy to scavenge up after political campaigns, and they make a great lightweight waterproof material.

The inside space has storage space beneath the bed, and the front door folds down onto a stand to act as a table. Part of the inside bed also mounts to a post and can be an interior table with space for two.

This was built for the Red Bull Creation hackathon. The prompt was "build something to help strangers interact in public spaces". My team's response to that was that people couldn't interact on an even playing field if some of the members of our community are failing to have their basic needs met. This, we went 'off-script' and built a semi-private space that allows you to meet some of your housing needs so that you can interact with the community on a better basis. In addition, the table that is built into the door allows you to have company and have, in effect, a front porch - a shared boundary between the public and the private.

The event made the news!. My team was "Ladies and Dents" and I'm credited as "Christopher Beacham"