Now why didn't we think of this?

Bill Gurstelle writes:

It is exactly what it sounds like. This year several cars, trucks, and two school buses were launched. I'm absolutely going to be there next year.

Car Launching

John Boiles, who earlier this year showed us how to control an RC car using an iPod's internal accelerometer (and also how to control the lights on a dance floor in more or less the same way), is a member of Austin, TX, based engineering collective Waterloo Labs, who have up-gunned his iPod technology to control steering, brakes, and acceleration on a full-size automobile. Definitely not the safest hack I've ever blogged, but probably the most impressive. Great work, lady and gents. [Thanks, John!]

Look, Ma, it's a motorcycle with four wheels. Not a bike but, um... a "quike," maybe? It's the 4RWF V8 from "Cosmos" Muscle Bikes. ("Cosmos?" Really?) Four wheels or no, they're at least going to have to hire a copy editor for their website before they'll persuade me to part with the nearly $100K it reportedly costs. [via Born Rich]

Interesting article in the Telegraph about "Argleton," a town that appears in Google maps but does not, apparently, exist in the real world. The best theory I've heard is that the town is a "trap" intended to catch those who steal map data. [Thanks, Glen!]

"Oilpunks" and MAKE pals Jon Sarriugarte and Kyrsten Mate have struck (hammer to anvil) again and come up with the Electrobyte, a cross between an extinct marine arthropod and a wheel chair. Flush from the success of their amazing Golden Mean snail car, they decided to do a sort of mini-me companion vehicle. They took the power and drive systems from an old electric wheelchair and created a hand-tooled trilobite body to go on top of it. The result is this sweet little ride.

Test-driving the Electrobite, a trilobite-shaped DIY vehicle

More:
Make your own snail art car
Snail car

Paul Overton calls this great round-up of creatively reused rolling stock from Web Urbanist a "megapost." I like that term. There's railroad-car homes, offices, hotels--even a railroad-car footbridge. [via Dude Craft]

You've probably seen vids of this contraption, Honda's answer to the Segway? I really don't get it. The human proportions seem all off to me, those "cheek pads" for your butt are just... wrong, and I can't really see the application. Definitely dig the "Omni Traction" technology.

Honda's U3-X taken for an awkward squat (video)

Gillian Higgins teaches horse owners about what's "under the hood." To do so, she very carefully paints detailed anatomical art onto the pelt of her white horses "Freddie Fox" and "Henry." [via Neatorama]

Pretty amazing yard art by YouTuber koUNit1. [via Geekologie]

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

Not sure what to do with that old gas guzzler? How about turning it into a giant ball? That's what artist Keny Marshall did with this 1983 Jeep Grand Wagoneer. There aren't any build instructions, but you should be able to figure it out from the construction video.

It's probably not street legal any more, but it will get you from place to place, as long as you want to go downhill.

With prizes for most original vehicle and best costume, I'm wishing I had heard about the NYC big wheel race a bit sooner...

Bring your big wheel, trike, skateboard, velocipede, or handmade contraption on wheels along with your superhero costume to race down the Great Hill in Central Park against the greatest front and rear axelers.

If you do manage to get a vehicle together, wear a helmet!

2nd annual NYC Great Big Wheel Race
Saturday, October 10, 3-5:30pm
Central Park Drive, 104th St east side

Saw one of these on Burnet Rd. in Austin today. It's a Piaggio MP3. Apparently the front wheels "loosen up" at speed to allow for cornering, but are stiff at idle so you don't have to hold the bike up with your legs. There are, supposedly, other advantages as well. I'm no bike expert, but it seems like an interesting novelty. Glad, as always, of comments from those in the know.

Okay, MichaelLubke is officially my favorite reader ever. In response to my recent post speculating about mechanical gate openers, not only did he run out and snap some photos of a working "Gandy Slide-A-Way" near his ranch, but in response to appreciative comments from our readers he went back and got this video of it in operation. Awesome! Look at it go! Thanks so much Michael!

That's right, it's a wooden sports car. And although the sexy images shown here look PhotoShop-y to me, the body of the car, which is made fiberglass-style out of wooden fibers woven on a custom-built loom, appears really to be complete. You can follow Joe Harmon's construction of "Splinter" at his site. [via Dude Craft]

Now here's a perfect example of why I love the MAKE community. In response to my earlier post about the possibility of modern mechanical gate openers, reader MichaelLubke went out and took these photos (1,2,3) of a real live working mechanical gate near his ranch. What's more, he ran down the original patent on the gate's design! This patent, US number 3,163,947, was issued to Mr. Alvin E. Gandy of Eden, TX, in the year of Our Lord nineteen-hundred and sixty-five. His invention, known as the "Gandy Slide-A-Way," is activated by the weight of one of your vehicle's tires on a short steel ramp built into the driveway right in front of the gate. I wonder how many of these were ever made?

This weekend, a crew of MAKE folks (myself included) will be at the Handcar Regatta, right here in Sonoma County. We're excited because it's not everyday that there's a maker event in our own backyard. If you're not familiar with it, the Great West End & Railroad Square Handcar Regatta & Exposition of Mechanical & Artistic Wonders is centered on hand-built railcar races, complete with awesome rules like "Racers and builders are one. Those who would ascend a contraption upon the rails to compete shall too be the builders of said vehicle." The vehicles must be human-powered and teams are judged on more than just speed: "Ostentation, bewilderment, whimsy, beauty, ridiculousness, and capturing the fancy of a seven-year-old girl are all reasons to build calamitous contraptions upon the rails."

Today, I visited one of the teams in their workshop behind a little white house in Santa Rosa, home of Whiskeydrunk Cycles. The Thennagin Bomber crew were up to their elbows in grease, parts, and whiskey, and the Bomber is looking mighty fine. Pictured above is the core team (from left to right): Klaus Rappensperger, Joshua Thwaites, Neil Espenship, and Joey "B.A.M." Castor, in front of the Tandemonium, their build for last year's Regatta. A little healthy rivalry is fueling the Thennagin Bomber build, as the gentlemen recalled their reaction to seeing the Hennepin Crawler's transformation from railcar to street car last year. They were inspired by the Crawler and built the Bomber as the "upgraded, faster homage." The Bomber is also a nod to bootleggers of old, running illegal whiskey. Incidentally, the Bomber boys mentioned that their nickname for the Crawler is "Crank, Rattle, and Hum."

As for what's "under the hood" of the Bomber, the crew took apart the motor from Klaus' Honda XR100 and pulled the transmission only, so they could have four gears to play with. They also turned it backwards to keep the gearing sizes low:

They used the front axle from a 1917 Ford Model T, turned upside down to fit the camber of the wheels, which are 19" spoke wheels from a 1929 Ford Model A, outer flanges cut off. The Bomber has a second set of rims with tires for street runs. Basically, they were going for a Model T that's pedal-powered. Hot!!

The steering box is pulled from a Toyota Corolla and they employed a boat crossover steering system for the cables:

One of my favorite features is that they branded by incorporating metal whiskey bottle silhouettes throughout:

The Thennagin Bomber crew said they'd be sure to mount the gift that was dropped off for them from the Hennepin Crawler team:

When I asked them if they were going to win this year's Regatta, Joey piped in: "We already won." The joy is in the build, not the win. Well done, gentlemen!

The Thennagin Bomber crew thanks everyone who helped them along the way, in particular their Hype Man Buzz for providing liquid courage and mota-vation and of course the ridiculously adorable Whiskeydrunk Cycles shop dog Eleanor.

You can see more pics of the Bomber build in action on their Facebook page. See you at the Regatta!

This baby was designed by one Michael Ubbesen Jakobsen. From baubike.dk:

The BauBike is inspired by Bauhaus design. It is constructed around the geometric shape of the square and the equilateral triangle. The design is stripped down to clean lines and raw material. The design follows a set of formal rules, limiting the geometry to straight lines in a pattern of 60 and 90 degree angles in proportions following the principle of the golden section.

[via Recyclart]

In an age of ubiquitous electronics and electromechanical systems, I think it's easy to forget that we don't necessarily need electricity for everything. I'm no Luddite, by any stretch of the imagination; I just think some problems are more sustainably and elegantly solved with purely mechanical devices.

Take the problem of opening a gate from a vehicle. Both my father and my brother live on gated properties, not because they're rolling in so much dough, but because they live out in the sticks and keep livestock and pets that they can't have wandering off. So they've both got vehicle gates in their fences, and both gates are well removed from any source of municipal electricity.

Dad went to considerable expense to install an electric gate opener powered by a lead-acid battery kept up by a solar panel, which works just like a suburban garage door opener. Very convenient, in use, but expensive to install and with considerable maintenance troubles associated with the battery and the solar panel and the motor and the mechanics. My brother, on the other hand, opted for the minimal solution and has no opener at all. When he leaves in the morning and when he gets home at night, he has to stop at the gate, get out of the car, open the gate, drive through it, stop again, get out again, close the gate, and get back in the car before continuing on his way. A low-cost solution with basically zero maintenance, but he pays for it with inconvenience.

Personally, I've always thought an intermediate solution would suit them both better--something purely mechanical, that would be cheaper and hardier than the radioservomechanical rig my Dad installed, and yet considerably more convenient than the get-out-and-do-it-yourself approach my brother has taken. Then last weekend I was browsing a use bookstore and happened upon a copy of George A. Martin's Fences, Gates, and Bridges and How to Build Them, first published in 1900. It included the diagram shown above, with the accompanying explanation:

Figure 204 shows a gate balanced in a similar manner, and arranged so it can be opened by a person desiring to drive through, without leaving the vehicle. It is suspended by ropes which pass over pulleys near the top of long posts, and counterpoised by weights upon the other ends of the ropes. Small wheels are placed in the ends of the gate to move along the inside of the posts, and thus reduce the friction. The gate is raised by means of ropes attached to the center of the upper side of the gate, from which they pass up to pulleys in the center of the archway, and then out along horizontal arms at right angles to the bars which connect the tops of the posts. By pulling on the rope, the gate, which is but a trifle heavier than the balancing weights, is raised, and after the vehicle has passed, the gate falls of itself. In passing in the opposite direction, another rope is pulled, when the gate is raised as before.

Googling around reveals, of course, that nobody is selling any such device, that I can find, so if one wanted one it would have to be a custom job. I wonder about the possibility of a system that uses the weight of the vehicle to trip the mechanism instead of a rope. Anybody seen a purely mechanical gate opener in real life?

By Steven Lemos, engineering intern

For a school project in my AutoCAD class, my group and I decided to design and build a hovercraft. At first we were planning a full-size, ride-on hovercraft, but after meeting and brainstorming it was clear we didn't have enough time to build one. So we decided to build a smaller version, using R/C controls. This was made possible by a friend's surplus supply of assorted R/C airplane parts, including motors, receivers, and controllers.

The hovercraft took one month to design using Autodesk Inventor software, two months to build working mostly on weekends and some school nights -- and 1 afternoon with the MAKE interns to wreck! Check out the video:

Spotted this sexy commercial electric bicycle in a back issue of Popular Science at the barber shop today. It's called Pi, and the company that makes it is based out of San Francisco. The magazine article claims it uses a Nu Vinci continuously-variable transmission but the official company specs now only mention a Shimano 8-speed. Sounds like they're still working out the kinks. Something to keep an eye on, though.

Hiroo Iwata, of the University of Tsukuba, created these robotic floor tiles that automatically arrange themselves to build a floor beneath you. By utilizing a touch sensitive surface, the tiles are able to predict which direction a user is headed. This information is then used to automatically rearrange the tiles so that the lucky user can continue to walk in that direction without moving forward in real space.

He intends for these to be used in virtual world simulations, however I think a more practical use would be to modify the distance between different destinations in your house. For example, a set of these in the hallway leading toward the kitchen might make one rethink how hungry they really are.

I absolutely love the concept, though. Can I get a set made up to look like turtles? [via technabob]

Olli Erkkilä created this custom concept bike as his graduation project from the Institute of Design in Lahti. [via Core77]

I'll give dollars to donuts that Jake von Slatt owns a Yaris because he likes to say "YAAAAAAAAAAARis" in a pirate voice. Anyhoo, Jake was tired of the 'Yota dealership hitting him for 50 bucks to replace the factory cabin air filter, so he hacked together his own from a $5 home A/C filter and wrote a good tutorial about how to do so yourself. Take that ye scallywags!

The federal “cash for clunkers” program succeeded in bringing customers back to new car lots after a long absence, but most people are still driving the car they had. Increasingly they are driving to their local mechanics to make sure those cars last even longer.

That is good news for the independent automotive repair industry because car owners are now willing to spend their money on repair work rather than take on new car payments, and they are saving on those repairs at independent shops.

But while consumers appear content to keep their older cars on the road, they are increasingly discovering that their car’s computerized systems may be conspiring to force them to turn to more expensive dealer repair shops even when those cars are out of warranty.

Most consumers experience this when they see a ‘check engine’ light or another warning that suddenly appears on their dashboard. When they bring it into independent (non-dealer) shops like ours, they simply want the underlying problem fixed so that pesky light goes off.

Sometimes, however, we can’t shut off that light even when we can make the underlying repair.

Most legislation on Beacon Hill is controversial and ultimately difficult to decipher, but Right to Repair is straightforward: You own your car and you should have the right to choose where it gets repaired and not be forced back to dealer mechanics.

House Bill 228 and Senate Bill 124 are controversial only because car manufacturers don’t want car owners to have unfettered access to their own repair information and are fighting it vigorously. That alone should flash a warning light for legislators and consumers that might read: Check Manufacturer’s Motives Now.

Wired has a writeup on Chad Conway's CommutaCar. It came out really nice, and helped point him in a good direction for his studies. Keep in mind that he was busy with his studies and after school sports, so did the bulk of the rebuild during his half hour lunch breaks over about a month or two in high school.

Best of all, Conway says his car proves that EVs have been possible and practical for more than three decades. "By driving a car that is 30 years old and can still satisfy the majority of my transportation needs, I always seem to ask myself why a similar car is not being produced today," Conway said. "I have had over a hundred people ask where they can get one for themselves because they think it is perfect."

For more info, check out his site. There are more photos on his and my Flickr accounts.

Lane Copley sent us this link describing his encounter with a gentleman named Raymond Duarte and his tricked-out ride while selling Girl Scout cookies with his stepdaughter in SF.

Jonathan Gleich submitted this hilarious/awesome (hilariawesome?) rolling "Zoltar" fortune teller costume to our 2009 Make: Halloween Contest. Zoltar took first place in the "Motorized Float" division at the 2009 Coney Island Mermaid parade. See more at Flickr and YouTube.

Last weekend I saw this neat bike at the beach. The frame doesn't look like anything special, but the wheels, tires, brakes and other components have clearly been upgraded. Attached to the lower end of the frame is what appears to be a chainsaw motor, which drives a heavy duty chain set on a gear on the left side of the rear wheel. It seems that the traditional features of the bike are all intact. The gas tank probably holds enough gas to ride for several hours. Though the exhaust is directed down and away from the rider, it's probably a loud ride.

I shot several pictures, but have no info on the build.

The electronic controls engineer from Franksville, Wisconsin, electrified an ‘81 Chevrolet El Camino, a poster child for the darkest days of American automotive design and a car with enough steel to shrug off a collision with a Sherman tank.

More than one commenter on yesterday's post about tweels in development for the military expressed curiosity about the possibility of non-pneumatic bicycle tires. Turns out you can buy them, online, right now, from here, and here, and probably some other places that don't turn up in a Froogle search. I have not tried them myself but I'd be curious to have comments from anyone who has.