Where others see trash, Davina Robinson sees toy cars with engines controlled by remote.The 22 year-old makes the vehicles from what would generally be considered garbage.
Using plastic from two-litre soda bottles and CD casing, old bicycle tubing, metal from sardine tins, cereal and ice-cream box packaging, pen springs, mesh from an earphone speaker, parts from non-functional CD players, an analog clock and a touch of baby powder, he has made working battery-operated vehicles.
All have functioning headlights and also do double-duty as radios, complete with earphone jack.
“When they throw out the rubbish I get vex,” Robinson, who lives in Woodford, rural St Andrew, told The Sunday Gleaner. “I don’t buy anything. I just stay at home and make it.” Robinson laughed as he said “I don’t mash up the good things in the house. I wait until something goes bad.”
He puts a lot of time into the recycled rides, saying sometimes his mother goes to work while he is working on a project and returns home to see him still at it. “Sometimes I sit down in the same place all day, don’t move. Sometimes I don’t sleep at night. I just want to get up in the morning and make them,” Robinson said.
There have been developments with each vehicle, from the pick-up, with removable tonneau cover) in 2006, which has no remote control, to the sports car made this year which Robinson said has a radio that “can hook up to a component set and get it loud, just like a component set”. The remote control (which he buys) operation began with the sports car, but the remote did not control the steering. He cut up and shaped a sardine tin to make a fan. The first sports car, made in 2010, has simulated smoke blowing from both sides of the front bumper, the radiator serving as the refill point for the baby powder which creates the effect. Then came this year’s sports car, with the steering controlled by remote and an antenna which Robinson can pull out and push back in.
The only other component he buys are the batteries, each vehicle using four AA “Duracell or Energiser”, he specified. The bodies are sturdy, Robinson using Ponal and Krazy Glue to put them together, and he also pointed out that the oil paint he uses makes them hard.
Robinson considers the four vehicles, which take about two weeks to make, souvenirs for adults and is planning to make ones without motors for children. He was slated to meet with representatives of the Jamaica Business Development Centre (JBDC) last week to begin the patenting process. “People will take my designs if they are not patented,” Robinson, who plans to brand his vehicles ‘DR’, said.
“Normally I paint house and do mason work, but this is what I want to do full-time, to show Jamaica my talent,” Robinson said. While he did art and craft at Papine High School (he said there are still house models he did there before graduating in 2006), no one taught him to make the cars. “It is a natural talent, God-given,” he said.
He is pressing ahead with other designs. “I actually have a convertible at home, you can flick over the cover. The two mufflers control the radio – one to turn it on and turn it off, the other for the tuning,” Robinson said. He also has a helicopter, which will have a working propeller, although it won’t fly, and an aeroplane without a motor. Robinson also plans to conceptualise and draw a vehicle for his favourite carmaker, Honda, and present it to them for, hopefully, full-scale production.
A cousin, Xavier Robinson, has already been tabbed as the person Davina will teach to make the vehicles to speed up production
Robinson has ‘Made in Jamaica’ badges on two of his vehicles, making his belief in his country clear. “I want to show them that Jamaica has the talent,” he said.
