Brake Light Backpack overpowered with LED pixels

led-motorcycle-backpack

Here’s another Flora Arduino based project from [Becky Stern]. It’s a backpack with brake lights and turn signals for use when motorcycling, but it should work just as well for bicyclists. From this view the project looks pretty normal, but things get downright crazy when she decided to use the WS2801 pixels for the LEDs. Sure they take all the … Read the rest

Brilliant auto-off feature for a bike light

auto-off-bike-light-switch

If you’re going to use your bicycle as transportation at night you really must have a head and tail light in hopes that the crazy drivers don’t hit you. For good reason, these lights don’t turn themselves off. But [Miceuz] kept forgetting to shut it down upon arrival and always ended up with dead batteries. His quest for an auto-off … Read the rest

Adapting the Nexus 7 for a double DIN car dashboard opening

making-nexus-7-fit-in-double-DIN-dashboard

It turns out that the Nexus 7 Android tablet is the perfect size to fit in a double DIN opening. DIN is the form factor of a single CD head unit for an automobile. Many models have room for a double DIN, which is defined as 4″ high by 7″ wide. Once [Meta James] figured out that the dashboard bezel … Read the rest

Wooden cargo bicycle

nearlycomplete

This is a cargo bicycle made almost completely out of wood. [Niels] and three of his classmates built it at Wico Campus Tio, a science and technology school in Dorpsstraat, Belgium. There’s a lot to be impressed by in this build. Sure, the guys concede that not everything is wood. They used metal screws as well as hubs, a … Read the rest

Faceless child’s engineer father builds him a breathtaking ride

amazing-kids-car

Okay, the kid does have a face, but it looks like Dad blurred it for his protection. The real story here is the killer ride built by his engineer father. It’s far nicer than the cars driven by the Hackaday team, but then again, since it cost more than a BMW 3 series that’s no surprise.

[Lingzi] lives in … Read the rest

Building an automatic bicycle transmission in a week

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Every year, the ECE department of Carnigie Mellon University hosts Build18, an engineering festival intended to get students out of the classroom and into the workshop. [Andrew Toth] along with team members [Jenna MacCarley], [Peter McHale], and [Nicolas Mellis] have been busy this last week putting together an automatic bicycle transmission.

Most cyclists agree that a cadence of 80 … Read the rest

Retrotechtacular: The differential

retrotechtacular-how-a-differential-works

Any video that starts off with two minutes of motorcycle formation riding has got to be good. If the grainy black and white video didn’t tip you off that this was made in a different time the helmetless riders standing on the seats of moving motorcycles certainly would have. But there is a purpose to this exposition. A single line … Read the rest