Whirling Twirling Propeller Trike 136
hankmt writes "A student at MIT has built a tricycle that applies force to a giant rear fan, instead of directly to the wheels. The effect...well, it's best to look for yourself, but it would be pretty useful on the post-apocalyptic roads of the Australian Outback. The blades of the trike even have built in LED lights which display colored patterns...and also warn pedestrians of their impending deaths."
If this trike concept became popular (Score:2)
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Crazy (Score:4, Funny)
Those crazy MIT guys are lucky that Massachusetts just made health insurance mandatory!
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First prize for impracticality (Score:3, Funny)
From the looks of it after watching the vide, its terrible at transforming pedal energy into forward motion, and I'd really hate to see what would happen in any sort of wind. At least a "real bike" you can get off and walk. Add bird strikes to the blades, the excess width, etc., and you've got a real problem.
Unless,of course, you're Wiley Coyote, and ride it off a cliff - you could autogyro down, I guess.
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Re:First prize for impracticality (Score:5, Informative)
As impractical as the Bede fan car (Score:2)
It's a very clever toy, nothing more.
Re:First prize for impracticality (Score:5, Funny)
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Brakes? (Score:1)
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Did you ever actually watch the cartoon?? if there is ONE thing Wile E. Coyote excelled at, it was falling off the cliff!
Re:First prize for impracticality (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:First prize for impracticality (Score:4, Informative)
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But it's simply great. How many of you would have thought such speed was possible in such an unefficient way? Sure: he could be three times as fast with an everyday ( "run-off-the-mill"? ) bike, but that's only better by a factor of 3.
Add a big helium-filled balloon to the thing and next thing you see he's flying (don't try this at home kids, you're not coming down the way you think you would).
Or build something similar for a gli
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If you mean DiCaprio, absolutely. Da Vinci, OTOH, would probably have given his right arm to have invented the internal combustion engine. In any case, he was smart enough to realize that
Fuel (Score:2)
No science (Score:2)
Re:No science (Score:5, Funny)
(cue the smell of burning karma courtesy of humorless mods)...
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Imagine a beowulf ... oh .... (Score:1)
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The big question is why... (Score:1)
I guess this proves that just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should.
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I am not sure if this is what he does, maybe not, since it isn't that easy to figure out how to wire up enough LEDs in a line and update those based on their angular position. A mechanical engineering undergrad that can use microcontrollers?
LED images? (Score:2)
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Pfft.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Pfft.... (Score:5, Funny)
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I can't believe Slashdot. (Score:5, Funny)
This guy builds a trike with great glowing, whirling blades of death on the back and actually manages to ride it around for a while without getting shipped to Gitmo, and people just complain how it's not practical?
You people fail utterly at nerd-dom.
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In other news... (Score:2)
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Do wings come extra?
Looks like something for Burning Man (Score:4, Interesting)
The Burning Man crowd likes stuff like that. It's too late for this year's Department of Mutant Vehicles [burningman.com] registration, though.
By playa standards, this is unambitious. Check out the Neverwas Haul [tribe.net], a steam-powered 3-story Victorian house on wheels that moves under its own power.
Re: Looks like something for Burning Man (Score:1, Interesting)
Also: the Neverwas Haul, while very cool to look at, was not self-powered. It was towed by a steam tractor (which is still pretty cool). Perhaps they've modified it since last year and, if so, I hope to see it out on the playa again.
Position of the chain... (Score:1)
Um (Score:2)
Fan cage? (Score:2)
That said, it's still pretty cool. I wonder how it compares to normal bicycle drive for efficiency.
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However, it is really awesome.
But is it linear with speed? (Score:1)
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In which case, what does the rider of the propeller trike use to translate pedel rotations into fan rotations?
I guess it would be a drivetrain, which will have similar bend/straighten frictional losses in the chain compared to a regular bike.
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And it is probably far more inefficient than a normal bicycle. Constantly pulling air from in front of you faster than it is flying by your whole vehicle in order to create thrust has to be less efficient.
Also, bicycling is the most efficient mode of transport there is.
Re:Fan cage? Fully enclosed... (Score:3, Funny)
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Also would probably have less negative effect from headwinds.
Regardless, it's cool and I want one.
Miyazaki did it first... (Score:2, Informative)
If it comes with a hands free iphone kit (Score:2)
Brakes? (Score:2)
-m
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if anybody wonders why he built it then look at your stupid case mods.
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I'm sure it'd be easy to have a hand-brake to lock the rear tires, and just slide to a stop that way... or perhaps a disk-brake system for the spinning fan itself... but simply attempting to reverse the blades... being helped along with movement mind you by th
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Just one word (Score:2)
"durr, they jump out of the way even..." (Score:5, Insightful)
(from the video) "...and they jump out of the way even if they're 20 feet away."
That's pretty smart on their part. Pay close, careful attention to how he restrains these spinning blades: A FUCKING PIPE CLAMP.
Maybe if he's so smart with matlab, he can work out the pulling force at a few hundred RPMs on those blades, frighten himself, and put a bolt through the blade and hub shaft.
Also, the design of the frame is pretty sketchy, with no bracing; he's relying purely on the static-load-bearing capacity of the tubing and his welds. If he collides with anything, the frame is going to come apart, and he stands a good chance of getting a chromalloy chest transplant.
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I'm not so sure about this. (Score:2)
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On the upside, you wouldn't have to pedal nearly as fast for a little tiny beanie propellor.
On the downside, you'd have to look down for people to see if it made a cool pattern.
On the unrealistic expectations side, if you could pedal really really fast and had a strong chin strap, you could fly around the room.
Research Funded By (Score:2)
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Twirly rotors, that's nice (Score:2)
MIT Project List..... (Score:1)
2. Button to order pizzas in an emergency. -DONE-
3. Empty Bathroom Stall internet alert system. -DONE-
4. Sledgehammer/Bowling Pin sharpener.
5. Validating/Confirming Scientology.
6. Wind Turbines for delivering green power to moon bases.
7. Candle powered gasoline pump, for pumping gas during power outages.
8. Knee pads so people can chew gum safely while they walk.
9. Submarine with a screen door.
10. Solar Powered flashlight.
11. Bathroom Webcams.
One would think that with the
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With a little more seriousness, a material that allows air to pass at 1 atmosphere of pressure but doesn't allow water to pass regardless of pressure would be pretty cool.
It had to be said... (Score:2)
Very Cutesy. Would like to have one, but.... (Score:1)
From TFA.... (Score:5, Funny)
As opposed to a normal trike, which operates with ear-shattering volume?
See the Dog-powered one! (Score:2)
And we have to ask... (Score:1)
Prior art. (Score:2)
Please tell me 2.0 will have a cage around the fan.
Nice (Score:2)
i have an idea to improve efficiency (Score:2)
Beaten to it (Score:2)
They made motor powered versions on Scrapheap Challenge [channel4.com] a while back.
Re:Dumbass Rolled Up Pant Leg (Score:5, Funny)
Actually, the bike pulls to the right. So by rolling up his right pant leg that side creates less drag, which helps trim the bike back to the left.
Dan East
Reminds me of a pilot... (Score:4, Interesting)
I once knew a pilot for parachutists and he would trim the plane so well that all he did to turn was to lean in the direction he wanted to go. I believe it was a C172 or something small like that.
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Many bicycle riders do this (Score:5, Informative)
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Why he/she interpreted the rolled up pants leg as the MIT guy trying to be "gangsta"is beyond me. For crap's sake, it isn't even "gangsta" anymore. LL Cool J popularized that in the late 80s. Since it is a covert form of communication, by definition if suburban
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It also depends on how wide trousers are at ankle (Score:2)
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the "dumbasses" are the people who let it bother them to any great degree.
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Far more interesting than the stupid computer 'hacks' that show up here all the time, which take little skill or imagination to pull off.