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The Walking House
What is 10' tall, has six hydraulic legs, and is powered by the wind and solar panels? The prototype pod house built by art collective N55 in Copenhagen, Denmark. With the help of MIT, N55 built the pod over a two-year period at a cost of £30,000. Designers say it provides a solution to the problem of rising water levels as the house can simply walk away from floods. One of the designers says, "This house is not just for travellers but also for anyone interested in a more general way of nomadic living." It won't be long now until the Japanese make Howl's Moving Castle.
Howl's Moving Castle (the book) was by London-born Diana Wynne Jones. The film based on the book was a Studio Ghibli production, with screenplay by Hayao Miyazaki.
-- Soruk
I'm the "MIT engineer" who worked on this and thought I'd mention a couple of things.
First, the Telegraph article is just silly reporting; the whole "runs away from floods" thing is pop media spin. For the original motivations for the project, read this: http://www.n55.dk/MANUALS/WALKINGHOUSE/walkinghouse.html
Second, yeah, it's contemporary art, not a piece of raw engineering or product design. N55 works entirely non-commercially, so the "pricetag" is not very relevant; you won't be able to buy one of these from us, but hopefully we will document things well enough that you can build something similar yourself if you'd like. The tetrahedral legs are of a unique design (as far as I know) that we want to share and the control software/hardware will all be explained and made available online in coming weeks. Art can be nerdy, too.
Third, I know it's slow and small and funny shaped. That's part of the point: to get people questioning the status quo of how we live and what we've been given to live in during recent times. But don't be so dismissive of radically different ideas... I can assure you that hexagonal prisms and truncated octahedrons are far more comfortable shapes than your boring ol' cube any day.
There's also a video on Youtube of it doing it's thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvxIB83Y0PA
Hard to distill all this for quick posting and easy digestion, but I'll try... Pardon me in advance for any sweeping generalizations; specific knowledge can be gained through further research. :) Anyone with further Q's can feel free to message me.
eBay, Craigslist, your local paper, and inquisitiveness while dock-walking will help you find a good boat for cheap. There are also lots of websites and books about restoring and living with older boats. One website which comes to mind is The Plastic Classic Forum, which deals almost exclusively with sailboats. Reading that site will lead you to many others, both forum-style, and personal sites.
DON'T be in a hurry; bide your time and do research while you get to know the market. Time is your friend; an good old boat is *not* getting more expensive... :)
Some quick notes: Basically, the 3 biggest factors determining price will be size, age, and condition. A 4th factor of importance is 'how eager is the seller'.
Unless you already have, or are willing to learn (a LOT), a wooden boat would probably not be your best choice. They are labor intensive and require specialized knowledge, even for maintenance. (They can be great if you have that, though.) Metal boats are similar - floating in electrolyte can take a huge toll on metal. FRP/Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic/fiberglass boats are the easiest to take care of, especially for someone new to boats. For this reason, I will concentrate on these.
Size: Smaller is easier, cheaper, and if you've been around boats/marinas for very long, you may well come to the conclusion that they are easier to use. From personal observation, it seems that the larger a boat is, the less it leaves the dock, as a general rule. 25' LOA (length overall) seems to be about the smallest size that you will commonly see people living on (that's how big my boat is, but I am a huge proponent of the KISS principle). On the upper end, you won't find many people singlehanding boats over, say, 45-50' LOA.
Age: FRP boats built prior to the first oil embargo in the early '70's are in the opinion of many the best FRP boats. Reasoning for that is the quality of resin used by production boat builders dropped when oil prices soared due to the embargo. Also, boats built then tend to be overbuilt, especially compared to today: the material was relatively new, so builders weren't sure how much material to use, and erred on the side of caution. FRP boats from the mid 70's up until the late 80's/early 90's commonly suffer 'blistering' problems (where water penetrates the hull via osmosis) that are expensive and difficult to fix.
Condition: The worse shape a boat is in, the longer its been neglected, the cheaper it will be. Look for something that has not been used in years; you will have to pay out of pocket for new gear, but many times on older boats, if you are smart, you will replace most of the older stuff anyway. :) Often you can find a boat that is basically just a hull (from a usability standpoint) for only a few hundred dollars. Stay away from 'cored' hulls, generally - you want solid fiberglass, because core almost invariably gets wet, rots, and has to be replaced. Cored decks can also be a problem, but are fixable relatively cheaply.
Good luck with your search, let me know how it goes, or if I can be of further help. :)
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain