Inventor David Butts has brought his chaboo in.  Formerly known as Walking Chaboo it is now known as Excercise Chaboo.  Apparently the gear ratio did not allow for adequate leverage so David is redesigning and rebuilding.  But for now, we have this REALLY cool Exercise Chaboo.

Check out these custom made gears. Umm-Did you hear what I just said?  He MADE the gears!  And the ratcheting system from scratch.  Crazy man.  Hes got the classic mad scientist look going too- perfect.

photo by Anna Campbell

Nice pic Anna!  Did you vandelize that 25mph sign in the back?  That is classic…

A walking chaboo, not walking a chaboo.  Although… sometimes I feel like chaboos are like pets- cute and cuddly.

Inventor David Butts proposes a walking chaboo! This is basically the coolest thing I have EVER seen! It  beats out swimming with dolphins , a snake swallowing a mouse, and watching Betas fight. Alright, alright- seeing Brandon Roy hit the fadeaway 3 at the buzzer against the Rockets this year was better but just barely.

The way it works is you pull a lever and through a series of gears the outside part moves, picking you up and dropping you a few inches forwards (demonstrated in diagram above).  Repeat over and over and the chaboo WALKS.  Right and left are independent levers so you can actually steer by pulling one lever more than the other.

David aka Maddog has made many a kinetic sculpture.  He has all the fancy metal machining equipment, mills and lathes and builds his own gears out of baltic birch plywood.  Check out his website Maddog Garage.  Click on the photo above to view a video of a prototype of his balloon tree sculpture.  RAD!

I cant even contain my excitement for seeing his walking chaboo.  Hes not sure if it will work- but I DIG that hes gonna try!

In no particular order here are the artists participating so far:

Alisha Wessler - illustration

Lauren Wessler - wood, paper mache

Jennifer Mercede - painting

Chris Haberman - painting

Sohaila Adela - illustration

Kelly Neidig - painting

Nell Warren - painting

Robin Kaplan - illustration

Dave Laubenthal -wood, metal

David Bertman -wood, metal

Kari Merkl - metal

Joel Wakeman - wood

Juno Lachman - glass

Eric Day - wood, metal, fiberglass

Todd Griffith - painting

Joe Mansfield - laser

George Ramos - wood

Mike Halvorson - wood

Paul Sykes - wood

Lindsay Holmes - recycled skateboards

Jess Hirsch - watercolor

APAK - illustration, painting

Erin Albin (appetite) - screenprinting/fabric

Brendan Budge - industrial design

Lisa Kuhnhausen - interior design/fashion

Jason Hernandez - wood

Sarah Bennet - wood, epoxy resin

Karl Ramentol - industrial design

Ken Tomita - wood, bamboo

Amy Ruppel- designer

Maren Jensen- illustration

Sara Huston - furniture design

Orange design.build - salvaged materials

Marshall Ryan - architecture

Ryan Thomson - architecture

Megan Scheminske - painting

Don Jensen - wood

David Butts - kinetic sculpture

Marc Riera - architecture

Ryah Radomski - furniture

John Paananen - interior architecture

Emily Steen - graphic design, environment design

Oluwaseyi (Shay) Sosanya - mechanical engineering

Tom Huang - furniture design

Ben Wood - furniture

Emily Knudsen - interior design

Corbin Keech - architecture

Jim Haas - furniture