Slashdot Mirror
Build Your Own Solar-Powered Scooter
An anonymous reader writes "CBC is reporting that the Biomod company in Montreal has released plans for building your own solar scooter for only $1600 (in Canadian funds, no less!) Hopefully the engineering community will take an interest, and add brakes to the blueprints..."
That's almost enough reason to go outside sometime.
Solar scooter? It'll never go fast enough to need brakes ;)
Agile Artisans
Everything is better with hot chicks, but somethings are just cool on their own.
R(k)
I will buy one when it runs on my cynicism and comes with an ipod holder.
solar-powered headlights?
why are there linux penguins on an msn page?
Hopefully the engineering community will take an interest, and add brakes to the blueprints..."
If it's solar powered, maybe your feet will be enough to stop.
from their message board:
Well BioModers' - Yesterday we did it! - For the first time on Earth (as far as we know), a SOLAR ELECTRONIC VEHICLE traveled over 100 kilometers in one day - on the streets and roads of this planet!
... A Black family took offense at our efforts to hook up with a neighbors' socket after a deserted factories outlet had suspiciously failed. Earlier, an African electrician cab driver had examined the vehicle during a brief stop, and rushed away vibrating with revealed inspiration, a Chinese family as well. After a short hop, we got permission from a factory gardener to use his outlet, with a good sun exposure - and then the cops showed up! They claimed that someone had hopped over a nearby fence! But the rattled OIL OCCUPATION ARMY was no match for the assembled prayers of native circles meeting yesterday around the world!
...So there we were, in the gathering darkness, BLINDED by the oncoming lights of S.U.V.s', going the WRONG WAY down a one-way highway - right through the RED LIGHTS of major urban cross-highways, wiggling through and between oncoming traffic of the acursed MOTOR CARS and TRUCKS - to their complete SHOCK! ....I wouldn't have had it any other way! (emphasis mine)
link to the post quoted
also, it looks like you have to log in to access the "files" part of their site.
Instead of a huge rickshaw-like contraption, perhaps a standard bicycle might be the answer? There are many available for less than $1600. This looks like a solution looking for a problem to solve. :)
If you really want to change the world, devise an efficient hydrogen-powered fuel cell. That would be practical and would change the automotive industrial and the dynamics of geopolitics. In one fell sweep, the hydogren cell would (1) clean the environment, (2) end American dependence on the Middle East, and (3) spark a renaissance in automotive engineering.
The Arabs could kill each other, and we could sit idly by, feeling smug in the fact that our economy is no longer based on oil.
I would like to have a little power module that attaches to my regular mountain bike. It would store energy when I'm pedalling, and when I tell it to it would release energy to help me get up a hill. I live in a hilly area, and most of the time I can ride without assistance. When I hit a hill, I could use some help.
As an alternative, the device could be charged at home all night. It wouldn't need too much capacity, since it would be just used to assist me on hills. I can pedal normally on flat road.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
so that's like what, $100 usd?
Jokes about how much $1600 CDN is in US dollars in 3...2...1
(it's about $1255 according to xe.com's currency converter)
Why do I have the feeling that the speeds obtained by this solar scooter will rival those of the Slowmobile from the Bureaucracy ("How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back") episode of Futurama?
Bureaucrat: "Oh no, now you've got my slowmobile off course and I'm going to crash!"
Slowmobile moves very, very slowly into a pile of boxes over the next five seconds.
Bureaucrat (in mock fear): "Ahhhhhh."
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
At least with a gas powered scooter, you might be able to move fast enough to avoid getting beaten up.
I will buy one when it runs on my cynicism and comes with an ipod holder.
CBG: A cynicism powered scooter? I really doubt that will ever-
[KA-BOOM!]
Highly impractical and only suited for pot-smoking hippies,
I'll have you know some of us pot-smokers proactively trash the environment, you insentive clod!
You may be able to replace oil with hydrogen for energy (a big maybe), but it's still used extensively in various manufactured products. That's a seriously overlooked part of the "peakoil" controversy.
With that said, and as a solar proponent and owner, and in the alpha design stages (that means I'm committed in me pea brane to do it) of my own little solar powered buggy*, this thing is ridiculous looking, and I agree, a normal human pedaled bike is a better idea. But... I'm not one to rain on any hardware geeks parade either, I hope they develop it further and make it more practical. There's a niche market for everything. Does anyone here remember the Armys "Land train"?
Niche markets
If anyone wants just an electric motor add on gizmo that fits most bikes, there's several on the market now, google is your friend there, much cheaper than 1600 clams, too. The one I saw a buddy had used a triangular flat battery pack that mounted in the frame of the bike, hung from the top tube really, it cleared your pedaling legs just fine being so slim, and the motor mounted over the real wheel and used a rubber wheel for a friction assist, and had a push button on switch on the handle bars. 15 minute or so installation, charge it, go. Had around a 5-10 mile range, but you still pedaled with it, it was more for hill climbing assist, hauling your groceries back, laundry, etc. If I could remember the name of the company I'd post it, but I know there's a variety out there, I looked before.
*nothing all that ambitious, merely an electric cart made from an old riding lawn mower frame I can use around the ole homestead here to haul a small work wagon with. Planning on using one of my panels as the vehicles roof so the majority of the time when it's just sitting it can keep the batts trickle charged. The goal is to do it with all scrounged parts, not spend anything except what I already have in my spare panel and some gear to go with it. Probably use a large truck starter motor as the main motive part as soon as I find one. This is the "no dollars" approach method.
Ya, I know, they make electric golf carts, the point is to recycle junk and make something practical out of it that I would actually use.
and if a big wind comes up, it doubles as a hang-glider
Table-ized A.I.
Maybe you got Canadian modpoints.
I don't know if I've seen anything that stores energy from pedaling (b/c when you're riding you really don't want something dragging on the wheel & slowing you up). There were some kits that, I think recharged during breaking, but from what I remember because of the light weight of bikes (?), the amount of energy gained from this wasn't too great.
Do check out electric-bikes.com, it's an interesting website. I actually purchased plans to make a Slipstream Electric Bicycle, but it's a bit too much for me in both the money and being-able-to-put-it-together dpts.
By far the coolest-looking solar bike I've seen is the XR2-solar that won the 2001 Australian Solar Challenge. It's just a slight modification of the standard Ground Hugger XR2 plans that are available online.
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
30 mile range vehicles usually use Lead Acid battery technology.
Good electric cars have had 200+ mile ranges for a few years now. The car called the Solectria Sunrise did 373 miles on a single charge using NiMH batteries in 1997, well batteries have improved substantially since then and existing LiON batteries should be able to approximately double that, and coming Li-S batteries promise to double that again.
Home builds and conversions often use obsolete lead acid batteries and heavy steel shelled vehicles.
There are good designs but they'll never happen. The question you have to ask is... In the future, how are the existing oil companies going to make you pay them thousands of dollars per year for fuel? They can't do that if your vehicle is purely battery powered, you can charge it at home or work. They can if it's hydrogen fuel cell powered.
This guy is fairly on the ball with the various solar and battery technologies around for cars:
http://www.benerridge.freeserve.co.uk/ecot.htm
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
So it is only $1600 if you use surplus parts.
Surplus parts are priced low due to the seller wanting to get something instead of have to pay to have the junk hauled off. Furthermore, once the supply runs out, there won't be anymore since people tend to get smarter the second time around. Not to take anything away from the guy (who is not an entrepeneur as the article suggest, but is an awesome geek), but saying that you can throw something together for cheap from junk parts does not mean you have an economically viable product. What would the real cost be if all the parts have to be purchased new?
He does DESERVE an honored position on the next Junkyard Wars episode, however.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba