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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."
Those crazy MIT guys are lucky that Massachusetts just made health insurance mandatory!
Trolling is a art,
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.
Kevin Smith on Prince
You know what also is funny? The way he rolls up one of his pant legs to be 'in style.' Real original, is he an MIT gangsta?
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
Better known as 318230.
That thing blows.
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.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
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.
The Burning Man crowd likes stuff like that. It's too late for this year's Department of Mutant Vehicles registration, though.
By playa standards, this is unambitious. Check out the Neverwas Haul, a steam-powered 3-story Victorian house on wheels that moves under its own power.
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.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Or at least drew it first in Kiki's Delivery Service.
Only old Koreans would lean to turn a C172. It's all the rage now to do it in an Antonov, n00bs maybe can get away with a Starlifter
I believe the reason why he pulled his right pants leg is so that it doesn't get caught in the gears.
(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.
Please help metamoderate.
Hmm, if he fully encloses the fan and adds a vacuum pump, then the fan will spin much easier and his forward speed will be pretty much the same...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
(cue the smell of burning karma courtesy of humorless mods)...
"I spend a month a year working on a commercial fishing boat with a loud diesel engine, and the greatest sound in the world is to hear it turn off," says Damon Vander Lind, the creator of a soothingly quiet trike"
As opposed to a normal trike, which operates with ear-shattering volume?
-Styopa