Video By Emily Lacy

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A very exciting evening! After completing the circle I couldn’t resist trying it out. Pants off, stretching, deep breaths, and I was ready to go. I felt very nervous. Picking up speed, I circled and circled on the carpet, waiting to make the jump in speed, the discrete translation from one plane to another! With a quick lane change, I moved up onto the surface. Within seconds I knew it was a success! Effortless! I couldn’t believe how easy it was. I was yelling, Elliot was yelling, we were all shrieking in the library at 1am: “It works!” The wind on my skin was the best part. Or maybe the sound…yes, the sound may have been better. The wood creaked and hummed with a rolling vibration. Sara had left hours earlier and returned by bike, rolling past the building on the sidewalk. Through the window she saw my head whiz by, thinking she had imagined it. She came into the library and yelled along with us in excitement. That’s when it really sunk in– Circulus worked! Elliot rode it as well. We both agreed it was a bit rickety, but I think that will improve with the addition of a final layer of 1/4″ MDF on top of the plywood.

Carl Norlen, Sam Lewis, and Elliot Dumont all deserve honorary mention for his night’s work. We surprised ourselves by completing just under half of the track by midnight, connecting the circle with unit number 39! Fitting all of the pieces together took some finesse. I had designed the ribs and guides with too small a tolerance considering the warp and bow of the 2 x 4s (the non-CNC’d component). As a result, I had to space the guides farther out than they should have been which created some minor problems– nothing a lot of brute force couldn’t take care of. Using two Bessey clamps, some strong 2″ deck screws and a trusty Makita impact driver, I got most of them to cinch together pretty well, considering the inconsistencies of the lumber. Elliot and Carl were there to celebrate the final installation with me. It was amazing to feel it finally all come together.

I spoke with Sara last night about how much fun I am having working on the project. I told her that it feels like a perfect exit from this place. Sometimes I think about having a tragic terminal illness that left my perceived health intact while opening up the possibility of a living funeral. You’d be so loved on your way out. Everyone you knew and cared about would drop what they were doing to come say goodbye and party, like a big climactic finale. Even though I don’t think I’ll be facing death anytime soon, I’ll be really sad to say goodbye to this place and my friends here. Having the library and working on the track has opened up a space for my favorite people to constantly circulate through, whether they happen to walk by and see the lights on inside or plan to come for the night to do work alongside my banging and hammering. It’s like a reminder of all the friendships I’ve been lucky enough to form this past school year– a vignette of encounters with everyone that has made life good here. In the past, my work has been solitary in a sterile studio space; it’s a nice change to have company all the time. It’s also more fulfilling to share  moments of elation with friends who’ve seen the endless hours that have gone into the project. Many of them have generously volunteered big chunks of their days and nights to helping me build, which is also a remarkable gift. When it is complete, it will mean a lot more because of all the interactions that have surrounded its build process.

The social aspect of Circulus has become the most fun part of it all. Here’s to circulation!

Last weekend a bunch of us took a trip out to Carson to visit the Home Depot Center, home of one of the best velodromes in the country. Roger Young treated us all to a beginner’s class about riding the track. Below is the Forest City Velodrome in Canada, the shortest track in the world (other than Circulus). Lisa Auerbach snapped the other photo of me trying to beat Elliot’s time on the LA track. The top image was forwarded onto me by O. Hess, who came across it in his daily web browsing.

Most of these great photos are courtesy of Lisa Anne Auerbach.

This past week I finally started moving the fully assembled face pieces up to their installation space in the old science library. What a strange space! It will be perfect for the track to sit in. Still smells like books. All of the laid out pieces and especially the upright assembled pieces feel like giant fossils.

The woodshop stage was an enormous undertaking! Almost two hundred 2x4s had to be processed as the framework for the track. Next, the ribs had to be combined with the 2x4s to create the skeleton for the plywood faces. The face piece was attached using brads and then screws. There are 39 individual units that make up the track, meaning there are 78 trusses to support them. The track is designed to bank at 45 degrees, a common bank for standard 250m full-sized tracks. Circulus is unique in that it forms a circle instead of an ellipsoid, meaning the banking is consistent through out the entire surface.

The actual physical works begins after many weeks of designing and planning using pen, paper, and Rhino 3D on the computer. The CNC router cuts out all of the rib pieces and face pieces for the track from plywood. Almost twenty hours of cut time. A very long weekend…