When Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream (yum!) first told me that he wanted a gigantic, mobile, rube-goldberg-like sculpture that would stamp actual dollar bills with political messages I thought two things: 1-this is one of the craziest ideas a client had ever brought to me, and 2-sounds awesome!

Hero Design “is at the top of their game.” -Ben Cohen, co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream

Ben was spearheading a political campaign to remove money from politics by having millions of americans stamp their money with political slogans like “The system isin’t broke, it’s fixed” and “Not to be used for bribing politicians.” He had partnered with several national orgnizations and was about to hit the road to promote the campaign and get the stamps into peoples hands. He wanted a completely mobile, invitingly fun, interactive machine that would also stamp bills.

After some fun brainstorming we decided we’d build something where people load their money onto small carts which would ride on a track like a roller coaster. The cart would be lifted high and released, and as it twisted and turned down along the track it would activate a sereis of politically themed  kinetic sculptures. When it’s journey was over it would slide into a custom stamping machine, be stamped and then ejected.

Soon enough we cutting up and rebuilding a box truck, designing a one-of-a-kind monorail system, prototyping kinetic sculptures and learning the finer points of stamping money. Along the way we assembled amazing team of artists, designers and fabricators who all lent their amazing skills to bring this crazy machine to life.