Where Archimedes said that he could move the Earth given a large enough lever and a suitable fulcrum, [Current Concept] decided that he could give his own spin on this quote by swapping the lever and fulcrum for a tiny $1 DC brushed motor and a very large gearing ratio.

In addition to 3D printing a compound gearbox with the requisite 1,243:1 gear ratio, the video also covers the joys of getting a ‘Craigslist special’ go-kart for about the same price as the electric motor and having to undo many very special modifications.

With that done, the newly printed gearbox was installed, along with the single DC motor to drive it all. This actually managed to propel the go-kart, at a pace that would impress even a snail, so for the next phase instead of a single motor a total of fourteen were used, all adding their tiny bit of torque into the gearbox.

Although one has to keep in mind that the gearbox and chain mechanism will also take its slice of the provided energy along with other inefficiencies, one still cannot beat the laws of physics. Much like Archimedes’ lever powered by a piddly human, the conversion of RPM into torque for these small motors was never going to get you that zippy go-kart experience.

Which isn’t to say that someone shouldn’t totally put some BLDC motors to the task and see how fast a go-kart can be made to move using those and an optimized gearbox.