Clanks, whirs, creativity: Kids’ ingenuity drives invention for Brooklyn’s South Slope Derby

In a junkyard just off 19th Street in Park Slope, 8- to 14-year-olds have been sawing, drilling and painting, surrounded by brightly colored piles of wood, rope-and-tire swings and lots of wheels.

They’re getting ready for Saturday’s 18th annual South Slope Derby, when hundreds of spectators will cheer on dozens of kids racing their own custom-built cars down 17th Street. Every summer, KoKo NYC — the program that runs the race — organizes workshops where kids design and build their vehicles, applying the nonprofit’s “trash is treasure” mission of teaching kids to use their creativity and reclaimed materials to build anything possible.

“It really puts engineering skills to the test, and I want to be an engineer when I grow up,” 8-year-old Bowie said as he and his fellow 8-year-old partner, Henry, finished up the final touches of their car at the junkyard earlier this month. Like most of the participants, Bowie and Henry are from Brooklyn. “You have to think, ‘How do I build wheels? How do I make this aerodynamic?’”

The pair used small bike tires for the front of their car and larger ones for the back, hoping that would help them pick up air, speed and a potential win.

Monika Wuhrer created KoKo in 2007 as a project of the Open Source Gallery, an artist space she founded that year with an emphasis on a free exchange of ideas. Wuhrer, who is originally from Austria but moved to Brooklyn about 25 years ago, said she aimed to make art accessible to the families in her neighborhood.

KoKo started small, operating out of the gallery location on 17th Street. Now the program has its own space, the KoKo Lot. Kids work in and around structures they’ve helped build — clubhouses with handwritten signs outside saying things like “UNDER Construction” with embellishments of “danger” and “warning.” There are kid-friendly toolsheds, handmade trophies for the upcoming race — and piles upon piles of junk.

“ It’s kind of like a community effort to get all these materials … We source them from all over the place,” Wuhrer said. “People contact us, neighbors come by and bring anything they find useful for us. But everything has to be kind of on its way to the trash. That’s when we think of it as being good material.”

Alongside teaching artists and young adult counselors, Wuhrer supervises the children during the weeklong derby car workshops, which generally cost $825, but with tiered tuition and scholarship options available for families that can’t afford the fee. The adults handle all the dangerous tools, but the kids’ creativity drives the design.

“It’s really special how much freedom and autonomy and trust is given to the kids here,” said Mira McElhinney, a teaching artist originally from North Texas. “I just think it’s very free, but still to have, like, the investment and care of adult supervision is something that I know I would’ve really gotten a lot out of as a kid.”

Invention is a trial-and-error experience. So the kids have the opportunity to practice racing their creations before the big derby, allowing them to fix any mistakes.

Owen, 10, worked on a car with his friend 10-year-old Lorelei and her brother, 8-year-old Archer. They were able to improve their car using the skills they learned at KoKo.

“When we did our test run, the board was scraping against the wheel and slowing the wheel down from spinning. And we had to cut that board off. And I think that will definitely increase the speed a lot,” he said.

The trio built their car to look like a black-and-white cat and named it “the cat mobile.”

“ I just thought it would be fun to make like, the tail move and we actually got that part to work,” Lorelei said. They loosened one screw and removed another, so with a little push, the tail could sway back and forth. “And like to make the ears and all the different body parts of the cat.”

Animals seem to be a hit in this junk yard. Eli, 8, created a multicolored car he named the “Creature Cruiser.”

“ It looks like a chariot with a mini roof on top, with a big sign in front that says ‘dog and cat’ with a beak coming out and some like decorations on the roof,” he said.

Bowie and Henry also embraced a cat theme, as well as elements of abstract art. Their derby car has the words “cat’s gelato” painted in big, black letters on the side.

“ I really like it, because I have a cat,” Henry said.

The South Slope Derby takes place Saturday from noon to 3 p.m. on 17th Street and Sixth Avenue, with a block party atmosphere and lots of local businesses as sponsors. it’s free to attend but RSVPs are requested.

Winners get handmade trophies and, as Henry puts it, “bragging rights.”