Ramp Camp — bike ramps on the playa

This year, the house’s contribution to burning man was bike ramps. The goal was to make ramps small enough that they were relatively safe, but large enough to give a little thrill. The result was 10 ramps that lit up at night, and had lips that were 8–12" high.

Here’s how they looked at night. The lights were either solid or blinking

We started with a prototype, and tested out all of our ideas here. Its coming together in this photo. The EL wire is stuck into the routed channel with hot glue.

After a night of jumping the ramp in the street with our own bikes, we decided on the final design. We all felt like 10 year olds in this picture. Extremely happy 10 year olds.

The amount of wood we bought filled the car almost exactly.

Making 10 ramps, production style. Here we’re routing the channel for the EL wire

And routing it along the bottom where the batter packs go…

Finally getting some paint…

And they’re finished and out! They were jumped by tandems, unicycles, and all sorts of bicycle. They’ve only been out a day in this picture and they’re already super dirty.