"The Tempest" by Gene Olson - Fact Sheet
The Sculpture:
The structure of "The Tempest." is a multi-tracked roller coaster with huge ball bearings as cars and a switching mechanism that is triggered as the ball goes past, sending the next ball down a different path. There are four tracks. All four tracks are tightly intermeshed so that it is sometimes difficult to keep track of just where the ball is going. It is a complex piece. Long ago I spent many months squeezing a lot of track into a small space. The longest track is over 700 feet with about a six and a half foot drop. There is a loop the loop track and a precipitous drop track and another track that swoops in and out and descends fairly quickly.
Audience Response:
Last summer we brought it out for a large party, and the kids played with it all day. One mother turned to us and whispered, "Look at them (her two sons aged two and ten), they're playing together, helping each other. They've never done that before." While it was at the museum, the docents told me it was the first thing the kids ran to in the morning and that the last ball in play would still be rolling as they locked the door at night . Children and adults tend to lay claim to the ball they have started, riding along in their imagination, and follow it carefully to the end.
Physical Data:
"The Tempest" is welded into one five X ten X seven foot piece. By the time it is mounted in a working display with ball pickups and safety shields it will be about thirteen by eight by eight to ten feet high. It has to be perfectly level for the long track to work properly.
History:
"The Tempest", is a kinetic sculpture which was started in 1976 and worked on intermittently until 1983 when a friend brought it to the attention of The Children's Museum of Minnesota. They didn't have a very big budget so I agreed to finish it and lease it to them. After two years, the museum wanted to buy it and install it in it's own room in the restored building they were moving into but they couldn't raise the money. It went into storage at a conference center, where the designer, and part owner, planned on using the sculpture as an interactive conversation piece. Unfortunately our friends the designer and his wife, the majority stockholder, went through an acrimonious divorce and I ended up with the sculpture again.
Maintenance:
Maintenance on this for the two years it was at the Children's Museum amounted to lubrication and replacing the industrial hand crank and the anti reverse ratchet when the kids wore them out.
Pricing:
By the time that "The Tempest" is mounted, tuned, delivered, and installed I would have to get about $15,000 for it. That figure puts the six months of fit and try construction of the piece at minimum wage, twenty years ago and a living wage for current changes. That would include a trip out to measure and inspect the site, working drawings for your approval, all materials (sans any site specific items such as wiring or lighting), crating, shipping, and supervision of the installation.