Backyard Roller Coaster – Family, Physics And Fun

April 27, 2014 by Jasmine Brackett 19 Comments

Coaster Dad Track Segment

This week we have been in touch with [Will Pemble], Geek Dad. After a visit to Magic Mountain in early 2013, his son [Lyle] asked “Why don’t we build our own rollercoaster, Dad?”. [Will] couldn’t think of a single reason why not. This was the start of the CoasterDad Project. Excited by the challenge of building a Backyard Roller Coaster, [Will] also thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to teach [Lyle] about physics. Family, Fun, and Physics – what could be better?

The track is made from parallel PVC pipes on a lumber frame, similar to the one we saw for the Manpowered PVC rollercoaster, but it is more varied and looks a lot sturdier. [Will] is now working on mark II of the cart made from a steel frame with skateboard wheels and has independent axles. He is planning to add a pedal mechanism with freewheel, so you can get a little extra oomph on the rises.

In [Will’s] great videos you can get a front row seat on the coaster and see that even though it is fairly compact it has enough rises, troughs and turns to keep you entertained. It may not be quite as exciting as [Jon Iver’s] homemade rollercoaster, but when finished, the rider will be able go round and round self-propelled to their heart’s content, or till they puke, whichever comes first. [Will] also explains the theory and practicalities behind making a strong, safe, but really fun coaster. Don’t miss the videos after the fold.

Have you made a backyard roller coaster, or are thinking about building one? Have you got any questions about [Will’s] roller coaster build? He’s up for making a video to answer some of them, so please leave questions for him in the comments below. We will post the video later on.

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Bike Pedals In Both Directions, Gets You To Your Destination AND Back

April 5, 2014 by Rich Bremer 48 Comments

[punamenon2] has built an interesting bike that moves forward regardless if it is pedaled forward or backwards! What? Yes, you read that correctly. Pedal forward or backwards and the bike goes forward. This project started off as any old cruiser with a free-wheeling rear hub. To pull off this mod a second free-wheel and sprocket had to be added to the current wheel assembly. One free-wheel and sprocket set is used when pedaling forward, the other set is used when pedaling in reverse. There is also a new chain tensioner that serves to not only keep the chain taut but also allows for the chain to change directions which ultimately allows this novel idea to work.

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Building An Inductive Loop Vehicle Detector

April 4, 2014 by Mathieu Stephan 26 Comments

[Trax] was asked by a friend to build a device that could detect the presence of a car in front of his garage gate for it to open automatically. After searching the web for such a project and trying many of them, he decided to build his own detector based on an induction loop. As you may have guessed, this kind of detector works by detecting an inductance change in a wire loop (aka coil) buried in the road. Having a car pass several inches on top of it produces such an effect.

[Trax]’s write-up shows a very well thought and professional design. All the detector parameters can be adjusted using DIP switches and buttons: detection type (presence/pulse), signal filtering, main frequency and sensitivity. The wire loop is isolated from the main sensor electronics using a 1:1 isolation transformer and a Colpitts oscillator is used to drive the latter. Moreover, gas discharge tubes are also used for lightning protection.

The change in inductance translates to a change in resonant frequency which is later detected by the main microcontroller. The board is 24V AC powered and a diode bridge + LM2596 SMPS step-down converter are in charge of generating the required +5V in an efficient way.

As if this was not enough, [Trax] also made a PC-based tool that can change other platform settings using a serial connection. All the resources can be downloaded from his website and a few videos are embedded after the break.

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AWD Motorcycle Drives Over Anything, Fits Into Dufflebag

April 1, 2014 by James Hobson 47 Comments

This has got to be one of the strangest motorcycles we’ve ever seen. It has huge tires, both wheels are chain driven, and it only weighs 100lbs or so — did we mention it also comes apart and fits into a dufflebag?

It’s what appears to be a home-made Russian bike of some sort, in fact, the YouTube title when translated is “ATV Suitcase” and they aren’t wrong… Anyway, it appears to be designed off of the American-made Rokon Trailbreaker, which is another AWD motorcycle with giant tires, huge ground clearance and extremely versatile — except this one Russian one is either really light, or the rider is ridiculously strong the way he throws the bike around.

In the following video the owner shows off the bike’s prowess climbing stairs, mountains, floating in water, and even uses it as a ladder to climb up a rock face — and then drags the bike up after him.

Plus he can disassemble it in a matter of minutes and fit it in a car smaller than a Fiat.

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Stretch Bike Hauls All

April 1, 2014 by Will Sweatman 43 Comments

cargobike

Need to haul some stuff? Got nothing to haul it with? Then fashion yourself a cargo bicycle! We’ve seen cargo bikes before, but none quite like this one. Built from a German “klapprad”, [Morgan] and his father fashioned a well constructed cargo bicycle which is sure to come in handy for many years.

They started by cutting the bike in half and welding in a 1 meter long square tubing extension. The klapprad style bicycle is made from thick metal stock, making it sturdy and easy to weld. This process also make it a true “stretch” vehicle as opposed to one that replaces the front end in order to keep the handle bar assembly near the rider.

Along with some nicely done woodwork and carbon fiber, they used parts from an old mountain bike including a front fork, front bearing and handlebar, tubing from an old steel lamp, a kickstand from a postman motorcycle, ~~and a kitchen sink~~ to complete the build. It should handle well so long as the weight of the cargo is not heavier than the weight of the driver.

The Coconut Cruiser Takes Relaxing To The Next Level

March 31, 2014 by James Hobson 9 Comments

While you might not be able to tell from the picture, that outdoor love seat has wheels underneath it. And that Coconut — yeah — It controls it.

We’re starting to like this [Rodger Cleye] fellow. First he brings us the awesome [Marty Mcfly] quadcopter-hoverboard — and now this. He had originally converted his old recliner into a RC comfortable transportation chair in attempt to sell it at a garage sale, and after that decided a one-seater was just too boring. It’s much more fun to lounge with a friend while cruising down the street in your love seat.

It runs off of a 24V DC system with two 15aH SLA batteries. This gets it going to about 5mph, and the battery lasts well over 2 hours. The coconut has a straw sticking out of it which is actually the joystick — a very discrete control unit!

Still not satisfied, he decided to throw on a 25W audio system as well, so they can play their Hawaiian music while weirding out the neighbors. Take a look after the break.

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Controlling The Garmin HUD With Bluetooth

March 30, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 16 Comments

HUD

The Garmin HUD is a very neat device, putting all your navigational info, from ETA, what lane you should be in, and distance to your next turn right on your windscreen in a heads-up display. The only problem with the Garmin HUD is that it only works with the official Garmin app, despite being a Bluetooth device. Now, someone is finally digging in to the Garmin HUD protocol, allowing anyone to control this HUD from a cell phone, tablet, or computer.

Being completely unable to disassemble the Navigon app for the HUD, [gabonator] decided the only thing to do would be to open up the device and take a peek at some of the packets travelling between the microcontroller and bluetooth module.

[gabonator] expected human readable ASCII characters, but after looking at the nonsense decoded from his oscilloscope and decoding them manually, he tried simply looking at the display in operation to understand how the protocol worked. He got it all decoded, and managed to get a Sygic Navigation program working with this Garmin HUD. You can check out a video of that below.

Thanks [Kevin] for the tip.

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