The following two paragraphs more or less represent the speech that I gave as I presented this award to Akio Kamei at the ceremony in Australia.

Having been given the great honor of designing the trophy puzzle for Mr. Kamei's Yoshigahara award, the only design constraint given to me was that it had to resemble some sort of automobile. I briefly played around with the idea of making it look like some sort of old Volkswagon Beetle, but ultimately decided that it would be much more fun to make a trophy in the form of... <show the trophy to the audience> ...a school bus. For those of you who don't know my background, I began my career as a puzzlemaker by converting an old school bus into a traveling workshop. It seemed somehow appropriate to me that the trophy that I would make to honor Kamei's lifetime achievement be an icon of my own beginning as a puzzlemaker -- a beginning which was so heavily influenced by Kamei's work.

As I thought more and more about this idea to create a school bus trophy, I couldn't help but think that there should be a miniature puzzlemaking workshop inside of it -- not only to emphasize the link to my own past, but also to give Kamei the luxury that I once had, of being able to make puzzles while on the road. So without giving away too much about what surprises are hidden away inside of this trophy, which, by the way, I've named the "Kamei Puzzlebus", let me just say that it contains not only a fully working miniature battery powered table saw, but also all of the tools and jigs which are needed to use it for a wide range of miniature puzzlemaking projects. All of the tool and jigs are hidden away in secret drawers and compartments scattered throughout the bus, some of which are easier to get into than others. It should go without saying that this will be quite a lot of fun to play with. Mr. Kamei, I am deeply honored to have been given the task of creating this for you -- I hope that you have as much fun opening it and using the tools inside as I have had designing and building it all for you. Thank you for being such an inspiration to us all.