Whirling Twirling Propeller Trike

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."

Comments

Re:First prize for impracticality

[Welsh Dwarf]

The for the record, it's 'kiki's delivery service' that has the bicycle!

Many bicycle riders do this

[benhocking]

It helps keep the pants leg from getting caught in the chain. Don't let that get in the way of your "gangsta" knowledge, however.

Re:Many bicycle riders do this

[Anonymous Coward]

Even serious Trek mountain bikes had these plastic disks on the outside of the gears "Serious" mountain bikes most certainly DO NOT have plastic chainguards. They'd just break the first time you ride over a log, and possibly get the broken bits jammed in the chain. Some of them have metal chainguards, but those are to protect the outer chainring from impact, not to keep your pants out of the chain (mountain bikers don't care about getting dirty, anyway).

Miyazaki did it first...

[Arctech]

Or at least drew it first in Kiki's Delivery Service.

Re:First prize for impracticality

[tylernt]

Gyroplanes (or gyrocopters, if you wish) auto-rotate all the time and can still do a zero-roll landing without a collective. The rotor speed is controlled by the angle of attack to the relative wind so you come in at speed and then flare at the last moment... not that that would really help a guy going down in this trike though, as he would have no control surfaces.