Teapot Tuesday Featured Teapot Racer: Tongue Burner (and a tribute to the driver)

This was the first running of Aidan Harwood's new teapot racer. As a matter of fact, he and his mother only finished building it two days before the races at Renninger's Steampunk Industrial Show in Mount Dora, Florida on January 28th.



Aidan has been studying Vikings this year and did a presentation about them for a homeschool social studies fair back in November, which is when he started talking about wanting a teapot racer with a Viking theme.

One thing that Aidan learned about Vikings, is that they often gave their ships intimidating names, so his mother asked for suggestions for intimidating tea related names from her friends on Facebook and received many great ideas. The name "Tongue Burner" is a shortened version of a name suggested by Jimmy Cantrell.



Tea Leaf Erikson and his tea party raiding raiding party cross the finish line during a practice run before the race.




For those of you who are not familiar with Aidan, he is the reason we have teapot racing in Florida.
After seeing YouTube videos of Splendid Teapot Races in New Zealand, Aidan announced to his mother that he wanted a teapot racer, too. Together, they built a pirate themed racer out of a Rock Crawler RC truck and a child's tin tea set. Then Aidan wanted someone to race against, so his mother started the Facebook group, Splendid Teapot Racing Florida and asked Renninger's Antique Center in Mount Dora, Florida to host their first race as part of their biannual Steampunk Industrial Show.

Aidan has mild cerebral palsy that affects the right side of his body, as well as epilepsy, a blind spot in one eye, and developmental delays. There are not many competitive sports that he would be comfortable playing, but teapot racing has given him a way to compete with people of all ages and all abilities on a level playing field. He has excelled. This has done amazing things for his self confidence!

Aidan has now raced in Florida, New Jersey, and Missouri. As of Jan. 28, he has won Grand Champion at 3 of the 7 races he has competed in and has enjoyed every one of those races.  Teapot racing is aways a good time, even if one is not a winner!

This time, though, he did very well with his new racer (the first RC tank he has ever owned). He took home medals for "Most Splendid Design", "Most Splendid Speed", and Grand Champion", as well as the trophy, donated by Renninger's, for the Grand Champion.

Teapot Racing may be the only sport that encourages the bribing of the judges. I think that has greatly helped Aidan's over-all scores, as well. This time he presented the judges with chocolate frosted, chocolate cupcakes with gear-shaped sprinkles.





Our Judges for this race: John Sprocket and Renate Goodwin from the band The Cog is Dead and a bonus puppy judge.



Aidan is already looking forward to his next race, which will be at the Big River Steampunk Festival in Hannibal, Missouri over Labor Day Weekend. The vehicle he took to Big River last year was not behaving well (it might have had something to do with the jumps on the dirt RC track he had tried it on back home). He hopes that "Tongue Burner" is just what he needs to compete with the many creative entries in Missouri.
SaveSave
SaveSave

The Women's March in Tallahassee, Florida Today

A thunderstorm was on its way, and already there were off and on heavy downpours, but that didn't stop large crowds from gathering at Railroad Square for the Women's March.

Teapot Tuesday, Featured Teapot Racers: A and B Racer and InsaniTea

We have two featured teapot racers today, driven by siblings, Bella and A.J. Cardoni. My understanding is that A and B Racer was a joint project.

Bella drove A and B Racer in the Sunday Splendid Teapot Races at Big River Steampunk Festival in Hannibal, Missouri on sept 4, 2016. She completed the course in only 1 minute and 9 seconds.



I would particularly like to thank Bella for all her help before the races began! As soon as her teapot racer was registered, she stuck around the booth and was a huge help in setting up for the races.


A.J. drove InsaniTea, one of the teapot racers I built. He had never driven this particular vehicle before, but still managed to finish the course in 1 minute, 30 seconds.


These are the last of the featured teapot racers I will be posting until February. I hope everyone has a  Splendid New Year!

The Temeraire Tea Party

I haven't done one of the literary tea party menus for a long time, but I was feeling inspired this week. I recently finished reading the 6th of Naomi Novik's Temeraire novels, Tongues of Serpents, aloud to Blaze and he's looking forward to getting the next book in the series.



Also, today is Blaze's 16th Birthday.

First gifts, then tea party!


The Temeraire series deals with the adventures of Captain William Laurence, a navel officer who captures a dragon egg from a French ship in 1805.



When the egg hatches and the dragon imprints on Captain Laurence, he must leave the Navy to join the British Aerial Corps and the reader is introduced to a world where dragons are an important part of the war against Napoleon.

Blaze chose chocolate for the cake, because the dragon, Temeraire, is a black, Chinese, Celestial dragon.

Chocolate cake shaped like a dragon curled protectively around three eggs and British flag shaped Walker's shortbread cookies.


Tuna salad sandwiches, lamb sandwiches, and spicy mushrooms on puff pastry:



The savory parts of the menu are based on things that Temeraire ate, with the exception of the eggs.

Dragon Eggs recipe: http://www.janbrett.com/dragon_eggs_recipe_and_coloring_page.htm



Menu

Chinese Style Beef and Broccoli Soup
Dragon's Eggs
Tuna Salad Sandwiches
Lamb on Rye Sandwiches
Spicy Mushrooms on Puff Pastry
Chocolate Cake Dragon
Union Jack Walker's Shortbread Cookies
Green Tea


SaveSave

Teapot Tuesday, Featured Teapot Racer: Speed Reader

Today's featured teapot racer is Speed Reader, one of the vehicles that I built to loan out to people who wanted to try teapot racing, but didn't have racers of their own.





On Sept. 3, 2016, Marantha Blum drove it at the Big River Steampunk Festival in Hannibal, Missouri. She exceeded the time limit, but she did well driving, considering that she had had no practice time with the unfamiliar vehicle.




The following day, Cheshire drove Speed Reader and completed the course in 1 minute, 36 seconds and only one manual assist.


At Renninger's Steampunk Industrial Show in Mount Dora, Florida, Aidan Harwood drove Speed Reader on Oct. 15, 2016.



He completed the course in 1 minute, 44 seconds with 2 manual assists. He received extra points for quality of the judges' bribes and showmanship.




The rainy weather at Renningers was not kind to Speed Reader. The books were damaged and will need to be repaired before it races again.

I am now out of racers from Renningers to feature on Teapot Tuesday, until the end of January, when we races again.



This feature will return next week with the last of the racers from Big River.
SaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSaveSaveSave

Teapot Tuesday, Featured Teapot Racer: Mr. T

This fine gentlemanly teapot racer is Mr. T, built and operated by Sir Thomas the 1st. at the Big River Steampunk Festival on Sept. 3, 2016.

Judges peeking at their bribes, as Mr. T approaches the starting line:

I guess the judges liked what they saw when they looked into those little top hat and mustache covered bags, because Sir Thomas received extra points for quality of bribes and showmanship.

I believe that this was the most theme coordinated teapot racer and driver at the Big River Steampunk Festival. It's hard to tell in this picture, but Sir Thomas' vest is also printed with hats and mustaches.

It was fun to watch the mustache mounted to the front of the racer bounce around on its spring while the vehicle was moving.

Sir Thomas did a splendid job of navigating the candlestick slalom, but the teapot had a couple spills on the Ramp of Doom.



Mr. T finished the race in 1 minute, 40 seconds and went on to compete in the drag race.

SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

Homeschool Social Studies Fair

The Social Studies Fair is always Blaze's big school project. He puts quite a bit of time and work into his display, so there was some panic when this year's fair was scheduled for Nov. 18, instead of late January or February like it has been in past years. We both spent a lot of time on this project, me finding the materials and information and Blaze writing fact cards, coloring, cutting, and even baking.  We finished everything, except the baking, with only one day to spare.

The topic he chose this year was Vikings.







Fresh baked barley crackers.
I couldn't find any barley flour in our local stores, so ended up grinding my own using the food processor.



We thought we were running late, but ended up being the first ones to arrive and set up at the Social Studies Fair.











All of the kids made amazing projects and most of them got up on the stage in front of the group to do presentations. Blaze isn't comfortable doing public speaking, but he was very good at answering questions as individuals looked at his display.