For over a year now I have been redesigning my remote-control truck. It was originally a 2-wheel drive Traxxas Stampede – an entry level remote-control truck. It had a single motor driving its rear wheels. The turning radius was good but at high speeds the truck would roll over. It could drive on grass, but the motor would heat up. On gravel, it could barely keep its tires on the ground, and in sand, it would get stuck because it only had power in the rear wheels, and that too through differential gears transferring power to the least resisting wheel. In other words, I wanted it to be a vehicle that could drive in sand without getting stuck; on grass without heating up; on gravel without bopping around crazily; and take turns on asphalt at high speeds and not flip over.
I decided, making it a 4-wheel drive vehicle will help it with driving on sand and grass. So, I began with the mission of adding power to the front wheels. The simplest way to do it, short of changing the entire chassis, was to replicate the rear to the front. Easier said than done! It meant finding a way to drive two motors simultaneously via the remote-control receiver on board. It also meant finding a way to steer the front wheels.
Needless to say, by this time the wheelbase got extended and I needed to design a whole new steering system. I am not an engineer, so I relied on trial-and-error methods with my designs. I bought stainless steel strips, and I would cut the designs I thought would work with the parts I found online in the remote-control hobbyist world. I had so many failures I cannot even count. Sometimes months of work would just go down the drain the moment I would take my truck on a test drive.
I will not bore you with all the details, suffice it to say that this week I finally achieved my goal of a truck that does not roll over at high speeds, does well on all terrains, and has a very smooth ride with plenty of articulation. By the time I got done with the project, other than the original chassis, and some of the electronics, the entire vehicle is new.
And here is the important lesson I learned: the basic rule of a solid design is that the structure should possess equal strength in all its parts. The moment I reinforced a part; some other part would break! I believe that to be true of a community as well. The moment one part of a community gains more strength than the other, its structural integrity becomes questionable. So, I questioned, how does one make something structurally a sound machine? By reinforcing everything else? Or, by reinforcing the weaker parts and making the stronger parts less strong. For instance, a stronger motor would break the axles or some other part of the transmission; stronger steering rods would be too hard to steer by a weaker motor.
In a community, I believe therefore, much like a machine, it is the responsibility of those who are strong to restrain their strength and those who are weak to exert all their strength for a community to work at its optimum level. Interestingly, this seems to be at the core of Mary’s Magnificat.
“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant.
Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name;
indeed, his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
He has come to the aid of his child Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”