Roof Coffee Cup
So what IS the Roof Coffee Cup?
Well, after reading an article by the smart and VERY attractive Rosa Golijan about a study in which a researcher sent a student dressed as a clown around a college campus, then asked cellphone users if they noticed anything unusual, I got an idea.
In the study, the cellphone users were less than half as likely to have noticed the clown on the unicycle. So, if they were oblivious to this:
how would drivers, who should not be on cellphones because they are distracting, react to seeing something unusual, i.e. a coffee cup on someone's car roof?
On the advice of OMG!Ponies!, I started with a discarded Starbucks coffee cup, complete with the cup condom. I cleaned the cup, dried it, and then applied a few coats of lacquer. After it dried, I hot glued the holder onto the outside, added some paper to the inside to give it a little reinforcement, then glued the lid on. To keep it attached to my car, I took three magnets from some hard drives, and glued them to a piece of round plastic, which was glued lightly to the cup. In theory, the cup should come off before the magnets do:
Lastly, I added some electric tape to the bottom to stop it from scratching my car and also giving it some grip to prevent sliding.
What I ended up with was a realistic looking coffee cup that will stay stuck to my roof at highway speeds. Which, honestly, is one of the things that makes me laugh the most. I can take a turn at 15-20 mph and the cup won't move, and people will still think it's going to fall off. What's even funnier is that you think people would back off when they think a cup might fall off your roof. But they don't, they usually speed up and tailgate me. But that isn't the only reaction I get.
There are a few main reactions I get. You have your "alongside riders", which are people who pull even with you while driving, and try to signal you. You have your honkers, who usually just honk. You have wavers, yellers, pointers, light flashers, and even the "imitators", who mime that there is a coffee on your roof by pretending to put one on theirs. The top people are the "retrievers". These are the people who at a stop light get out of their car and try to take the cup off the roof. Most people as soon as they try to take it off, realize it's stuck to the roof and laugh. Some actually take it off and don't realize it has no coffee in it.
But to be honest, as of yet, I have yet to see someone with a cellphone or texting notice the cup on my roof. This includes a person on a corner, waiting for a green light, talking on a cellphone, and didn't notice the cup literally three feet in front of her IN her line of sight.
So THAT is the roof coffee cup. It has it's own Twitter hash tag, and now it's own Twitter account: http://twitter.com/RoofCoffeeCup. There's discussion about installing a camera in the cup to get peoples reactions, but that costs money, so it's a dream right now.
Well, after reading an article by the smart and VERY attractive Rosa Golijan about a study in which a researcher sent a student dressed as a clown around a college campus, then asked cellphone users if they noticed anything unusual, I got an idea.
In the study, the cellphone users were less than half as likely to have noticed the clown on the unicycle. So, if they were oblivious to this:
how would drivers, who should not be on cellphones because they are distracting, react to seeing something unusual, i.e. a coffee cup on someone's car roof?
On the advice of OMG!Ponies!, I started with a discarded Starbucks coffee cup, complete with the cup condom. I cleaned the cup, dried it, and then applied a few coats of lacquer. After it dried, I hot glued the holder onto the outside, added some paper to the inside to give it a little reinforcement, then glued the lid on. To keep it attached to my car, I took three magnets from some hard drives, and glued them to a piece of round plastic, which was glued lightly to the cup. In theory, the cup should come off before the magnets do:
Lastly, I added some electric tape to the bottom to stop it from scratching my car and also giving it some grip to prevent sliding.
What I ended up with was a realistic looking coffee cup that will stay stuck to my roof at highway speeds. Which, honestly, is one of the things that makes me laugh the most. I can take a turn at 15-20 mph and the cup won't move, and people will still think it's going to fall off. What's even funnier is that you think people would back off when they think a cup might fall off your roof. But they don't, they usually speed up and tailgate me. But that isn't the only reaction I get.
There are a few main reactions I get. You have your "alongside riders", which are people who pull even with you while driving, and try to signal you. You have your honkers, who usually just honk. You have wavers, yellers, pointers, light flashers, and even the "imitators", who mime that there is a coffee on your roof by pretending to put one on theirs. The top people are the "retrievers". These are the people who at a stop light get out of their car and try to take the cup off the roof. Most people as soon as they try to take it off, realize it's stuck to the roof and laugh. Some actually take it off and don't realize it has no coffee in it.
But to be honest, as of yet, I have yet to see someone with a cellphone or texting notice the cup on my roof. This includes a person on a corner, waiting for a green light, talking on a cellphone, and didn't notice the cup literally three feet in front of her IN her line of sight.
So THAT is the roof coffee cup. It has it's own Twitter hash tag, and now it's own Twitter account: http://twitter.com/RoofCoffeeCup. There's discussion about installing a camera in the cup to get peoples reactions, but that costs money, so it's a dream right now.