It all began with our local village soap box race in 2017.

A quarter mile “race” featuring a wonderful array of entrants, from decorated wheelbarrows, shopping trolleys, to push carts. We decided to enter a rather cool vehicle, a three-wheel recumbent racing trike design. Or so we thought at the time! Made of wood, with a simple pivoting axle, it did the job, and despite the lack of engine (Jim), Alex came fourth in a race of 30. Not bad.

We were rather proud of our construction; it even had a rudimentary brake. But it was prone to rolling over, and there were many improvements we could make.

In the next year’s festival - 2018 - we decided to make a metal go-kart, adapted from a wheelbarrow chassis donated to us by the local hardware store. We bought a pillar drill, found a scrap metal merchants in Bristol, and built something that had steering, and - this was a big step - independent front suspension.

We entered the race, and nearly won - although beaten by a marathon runner pushing a toddler on a micro-scooter. But we did win ‘Best Engineering’ prize.

When 2019 came round, we took our design and improved it further, replacing the back wheels with proper BMX skyways (found in Julian House Bike Workshop), the subject of some local jealousy from dads who’d always wanted a pair!

The race went well, but we were up against the limitations of our vehicle - quite heavy, limited steering, and no brakes.

Then the pandemic struck, and the Larkhall Festival was axed for 2020. In preparation we’d already started designing a new, better vehicle, purchasing some quality BMX 20 inch wheels.

Faced with lockdown, we had a choice. Should we wait until next year’s festival before resuming the design, and build, or should we press on, and build something anyway? We decided to press on, and we’re so glad we did.

However, our third design went wrong, because we chose to build the frame out of wood and metal. The wood was too heavy, and not strong enough. We realised we hadn’t really thought the design through, and we were struggling with the choice of materials. “Real” go-karts are made of metal, with welded steel tubular frames.

We took a break during lockdown - mainly as there was no planned race on the horizon. We picked up the project later in 2020, and were faced with a key decision - should we learn to weld, or do we find another way to assemble a strong, complex structure? Welding steel is one thing, but aluminium (then our preferred material for lightness) with its protective oxide coating is even harder. We’d need a full workshop, which we didn’t have (living in a terrace with no garage), and significant PPE.

Like all inventing decisions, it took a change of scene to come up with the answer. Whilst riding back from Dundas Aqueduct to Bath we decided to go with a curved aluminium tubular frame, which was an improvement, but we were still unsure how to join the tubes.

The answer came in Christmas 2020, when we acquired our first 3D printer (a Creality Ender 3 v2). Whilst learning how to use the printer - with the curved-rail design in the back of our minds, we soon came up with a new design concept. We would use modular 3D printed structures at either end connected by aluminium tubes which curved around the driver. Having printed a small scale model of one, we began prototyping various parts of the structure, all the while undergoing a crash course in the basics of automotive engineering.

This was the beginning of the first prototype of the vehicle as you know it today.