That's How We Roll

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By Sean Michael Ragan
Posted 2011/04/11 @ 6:00 am
Category Energy, Fun & Games

Spotted in the MAKE Flickr pool, this homemade contraption from user Whymcycles who, besides having my favorite UID ever, has this to say about his creation:

Made from an 8 foot..96″..pair of power line spool hoops, sized down and painstakingly re-arc-ed back to more or less circular 84″, and crossbars of electrical conduit. Also with 4 handholds made from Schwinn Varsity drop bars…and foot straps of old car seat belts. We’ll see if practice, persistence and careful study of YouTube European footage..will allow me to learn some of the art of Wheel Gymnastics.

The device itself is called a “Rhönrad,” “gymnastics wheel,” or “German wheel,” and is apparently the basis of an entire sport in Germany.

In the Maker Shed

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Telegraph Decoder Kit by Spikenzie Labs

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2 Responses to That's How We Roll

Matt Fedorko on April 11th, 2011 at 1:18 pm said:

That guy’s famous for his bicycle-esque creations. For a short while in the mid-90s, the Klutz Company sold a scooter that he made that you bounced up and down on to make it move forward. I ended up calling Klutz in 2004 or so in order to find out who made the dang thing, and they pointed me towards Peter Wagner: http://daviswiki.org/Whymcycles. Of course, I was broke as could be then, and didn’t buy a scooter. Some day!

This is the scooter, from the same page above:

http://daviswiki.org/WhymCycles?action=Files&do=view&target=whym6.jpg

It has an off-center wheel in the back, attached to the place where you stand and bounce. Pretty cool.

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Nick Eide on April 11th, 2011 at 2:50 pm said:

I thought this was a silly thing until I saw this video, I don’t know if cool is the right word, but very impressive:

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