Every cool ride needs a set of hot wheels. Here are two of the four for the penguins vehicle made from polystyrene. Apparently they are a well known Antarctic brand.

Every year the grandkids come north and we attend the evening Santa Parade in Fenelon Falls. It' a pretty good showing for a smaller rural town. Since the kids are a little older I pitched that maybe we should enter a float in next years parade! I figured with a little twist on my automata work we could do something little different, fun and, fun for the family and the community.

Before committing I thought I should try and make something that would meet my personal criteria which are entertaining, weatherproof, sturdy enough to survive the trip to town and the parade route, and of course, somewhat automated. So I set out to build a prototype penguin to see how hard working with foam and scaling things would be. Well here is my guy. My daughter has named him Pete. He is 36" tall, opens and closes his mouth and he will waddle side to side when install on the float.

I found a few challenges working with the foam, but basically I think I can pass the 10 ft blink test needed for a parade character. Anyway, here is Pete!