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I had less than $95,000 to
build my prototype. This restriction kept most small businesses out of the
competition.
    Like a kid locked in a candy store,
I didn’t know where to begin. Because of my late entry, I only had ten weeks
left to present the AI referee with a draft design. It took about an hour to
download and verify the plans from a standard CAD package, and another hour or
two to “explain” any irregularities and special materials, unusual movement
equations or aerodynamics to a human judge. This gave your vehicle’s price and
preliminary ratings to be published in the convention’s guide book.
    The two weeks after that were used
to rework objections raised by the expert-system analyzer. The final design was
due a mere two weeks before the convention. After the second submission, the
only changes allowed were the repairs before each day of the race.
    I knew already that getting ready
for the event would keep me awake at night. Normally, a design begins with the
repulsion grid that negates the vehicle’s weight. I almost worked in reverse.
    The hardest part in constructing
the scaled-up version of my prototype would be building a sturdy cockpit
cheaply, one that was perfectly round without obstructing my field of vision or
being obvious about why it was circular. The solution came from Jane’s On-line
Military Guide. The B-52 was being sold for scrap in several places, and I was
able to pick up two belly-gunner turrets for ten cents a pound scrap plus
transport fees. They even had swivel mounts for guns in them. I replaced the
old 1940’s glass with clear, bullet proof plexar from a snow-plow factory.
    The engine itself was from the more
modern hush-copters, also surplus, but much harder to get. To avoid contact
with the central bubble, all my body support frames had to be curved, and
heavy-duty, like what they use in submarines. As a side-effect, my outer hull
would be over-engineered. My hull would be airtight and float.
    Because of my odd design, no repeller
field grid on the market today would fit. I rigged the center for the landing
gear, a ground car arrangement with tiny tires on retractable armatures for
parking. As the final step, I figured out the weight of everything the vehicle
would be carrying, the blaze armor, the machine guns, the ammunition, the
aluminum tinsel (to confuse laser and radar targeting), all the electronics,
and the pilot. I wanted to use mini-repulsion-grids like they do under each
axle of a semi trailer, but the new design weighed just too much for two grids
and not quite enough for three. Unfortunately, I couldn’t afford three grids
and stay under the required price.
    After working and reworking the
design so tight that it squeaked, I was still overweight. I spent days
agonizing over the weight factors and materials. With this much lift and
expense, I could build several vehicles, but not the one I needed.
    Then it hit me—the discounts for
similar designs! I would build them like three separate, but tightly-coupled
machines. The two support lifers would be as Spartan as possible, carrying the
ballast, sweeper guns, expendables, spin brakes, and gearing systems. They
would be little better than glorified open-air sleds with less room for
passengers than a luge. The two would differ only in the handedness of the
coupling. I would pass that off as the American and European versions of the
same vehicle line, with driver slots on the left and right respectively. I
planned to drop in used Porsche or motorcycle engines to power them with as
little modification as possible. Because of the similarity in design, they
would cost two-thirds as much as they would have separately, and used they would
cost even less.
    The main compartment would carry
the over-sized spin engine, electronics, and the primary cockpit. From above,
the whole thing would assemble like a giant, bulging hamburger that had a top
cruising speed of 220 km/h on the highway. Without the twins to help, the