Transportation Hacks

1516 Articles

An Electric Unicycle, In Minimalist Form

September 1, 2023 by 18 Comments

When self balancing scooters hit the market a few years ago they brought alongside them a range of machines, from the hoverboard kids toys which have provided so many useful parts, to the stand-astride electric unicycles. These last machines have a bulky battery and controller box atop the wheel, and [Dycus] set his sights on this by transferring it to a backpack with the vehicle’s IMU sensor relocated to one of the pedals.

Such a job is not merely a simple case of rewiring with some longer cables, as a first challenge the IMU communicates via I2C which isn’t suitable for longer distances. This is solved by a chipset which places the I2C on a differential pair, but even then it’s not quite a case of stepping on and zipping about. The PID parameters of the balancing algorithm on a stock machine are tuned for the extra weight of the battery on top, and these needed to be modified. Fortunately there have been enough people hacking the STM microcontroller and firmware involved for this task to be achievable, but we’d rate it as still something not for the faint-hearted.

The final result can be seen in the video below, and the quality of the physical work shows as very high. The former battery box is repurposed into a stylish backpack, and though the newly minimalist foot pedals and wheel are a little less easy to get going he zips around with ease.

Hungry for more? This ain’t the first we’ve shown you.

Continue reading “An Electric Unicycle, In Minimalist Form” →

Hoverboard Turned Into Bonkers Omniwheeled Bike

August 31, 2023 by 13 Comments

Segways stunned the world when they first hit the market in 2001. Hoverboards then terrified the world with nasty accidents and surprise fires. [James Bruton] loves hoverboards regardless, and set out on a mighty upgrade regime turning the ride-on toy into a giant omniwheeled bicycle.

The build relies on two giant omniwheels of [James’s] own creation, using lasercut and 3D-printed parts. The wheels are mounted perpendicularly on either end of a boxy plywood “bike frame” built in two sections, with a split in the middle. The two halves can rotate relative to each other, much like the two halves of a stock hoverboard.

Amazingly, the build relies on the stock hoverboard motors and electronics. The hoverboard wheel motors are responsible for driving the omniwheels at either end via a toothed belt drive. The gear ratio of the belt reduction is set up to cancel out the greater diameter of the omniwheels, such that the hoverboard’s tuning isn’t disrupted. Wisely, [James] also fitted a safety power cutout, too.

The result is a self-balancing “bike” the likes of which you’ve never seen before. At present, it can balance upright and rotate relatively well. However, control is difficult, requiring the use of the rider’s body weight and the twisting of the bike’s sections. [James] has instead contemplated using servos to tilt the hoverboard sensors instead for an easier control method than the current setup.

It’s a truly bonkers build which is a testament to [James’s] creativity and prowess. We’ve seen some other great hoverboard hacks before, but nothing quite like this. Video after the break.

Continue reading “Hoverboard Turned Into Bonkers Omniwheeled Bike” →

3D Printing RC Car Tires To Go Fast

August 30, 2023 by 15 Comments

There’s a bit of a high-speed arms race in the RC world on YouTube these days. [Michael Rectin] is in on the action, and he’s been exploring how to 3D print a decent set of tires to help his RC car reach higher speeds mph.

His first efforts involved experiments with TPU. The tires looked okay, but had very little traction. He later moved on to VarioShore TPU, a filament capable of delivering various properties depending on the printing method. Printing for the softest, and thus grippiest, possible tires, [Michael] whipped up some sporty looking boots for his wheels.

His tires improved over  off-road RC tires in one major way. His design didn’t suffer significant ballooning as the rotational velocity increased. However, the VarioShore material lacked grip compared to off-the-shelf rubber RC tires designed for high-speed use. The commercially-available tires also offered a smoother ride.

[Michael] also demonstrated some neat tricks for high-speed RC driving. He used a modified flight controller to correct the car’s steering in response to perturbations, and put in a scaling method that reduces steering inputs at higher speed. That didn’t entirely stop the carnage though, with some incidents seeing wheels thrown off in big tumbling crashes.

Electric-powered RC cars can go darn quick these days, but you might want to consider jet power if you want to break records. Video after the break.

Continue reading “3D Printing RC Car Tires To Go Fast” →

Next-Gen Autopilot Puts A Robot At The Controls

August 25, 2023 by 19 Comments

While the concept of automotive “autopilots” are still in their infancy, pretty much any aircraft larger than an ultralight will have some mechanism to at least hold a fixed course and altitude. Typically the autopilot system is built into the airplane’s controls, but this new system replaces the pilot themselves in a manner reminiscent of the movie Airplane.

The robot pilot, known as PIBOT, uses both AI and robotics technology to fly the airplane without altering the aircraft. Unlike a normal autopilot system, this one can be fed the aircraft’s manuals in natural language, understand them, and use that information to fly the airplane. That includes operating any of the aircraft’s cockpit controls, not just the control column and pedal assembly. Supposedly, the autopilot can handle everything from takeoff to landing, and operate capably during heavy turbulence.

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) research team that built the machine hopes that it will pave the way for more advanced autopilot systems, and although this one has only been tested in simulators so far it shows enormous promise, and even has certain capabilities that go far beyond human pilots’ abilities including the ability to remember a much wider variety of charts. The team also hopes to eventually migrate the technology to the land, especially military vehicles, although we’ve seen how challenging that can be already.

This Car Has Wooden Performance

August 23, 2023 by 40 Comments

If you were to take a look at the car parked closest to where you are sitting, there’s an overwhelming probability that its main structural parts are made of steel. A few might be aluminium and fewer still composite materials, but by and large that’s it for automotive structures. This hasn’t stopped the inventive Russians at [Garage 54] from experimenting though, and in their latest they’ve made a car with a chassis made of wood. Not carefully sawn and assembled wooden structural components, oh no. These are wooden tree trunks and branches.

Of course it’s an opportunity for them to run wild on their very successful schtick of the crazy Eastern European YouTuber, but behind that it’s entertaining to watch how they adapt a drive train — taken we’re guessing from the FIAT 124-derived Zhiguli, or Lada as most of us would know it — to such an unconventional chassis. A lot of wire binding is used, and even then the car has a lot of the flexible about it. We’re not so sure about the differential without oil or indeed the front suspension that appears to be developing a lean, but they do manage to take it out of the forest and onto the road.

Are unconventional and definitely-not-road-legal motors your thing? Here’s another, courtesy of some Dutch lads.

Continue reading “This Car Has Wooden Performance” →

A series of tubes wound up and down as modules in a metal-framed, free-standing wall. The wall is inside a climate-controlled test chamber with a series of differently-colored tubes running behind the free-standing wall.

Cooling Off The Bus Stop

August 18, 2023 by 49 Comments

If you’ve taken the bus in the summer, you know it can get hot while you wait on your ride, even if there is a roof over the stop. Researchers at the University of Seville have devised a way to keep you cooler while you wait.

As temperatures around the world get warmer due to climate change, keeping cool in the summer is increasingly not just a matter of comfort. For the prototype in a climate-controlled chamber, 500L of water were cooled with a chiller and used as a thermal reservoir to reduce temps in the bus stop during the day. Pumps circulate the water through panels when a rider approaches the stop, cooling the space by ~8˚C (~14˚F) over a 20 minute period. Pumps for the system and lighting for the stop will be powered via solar panels and keep the system self-contained.

The amount of cooling offered by the system can be controlled by the flow rate of the water. The researchers plan to use Falling-Film radiant cooling in the outdoor version to replace the chiller to cool the water at night. They also say the system can be used for radiant heating in the winter, so it isn’t just for hot climates.

If you want to know how to survive a wet bulb event or want a better way to determine your bus route, we’ve got you covered there too.

[via Electrek]

A DeLorean sitting on patchy snow next to a driveway. It's angled away from the viewer to the left showing off the open engine compartment with bright orange high voltage lines coming out of a square metallic charger box.

A DeLorean With An Electrifying Secret

August 16, 2023 by 47 Comments

There are few production cars with as much geek cred as the DMC DeLorean. If you want to kick the nerdiness up a notch without doing a full Back to the Future prop-mod, then the next best thing is to make it an EV.

[Bill Carlson] took a 1981 DeLorean and transplanted the drivetrain from a Chevy Bolt to electrify this ride. With the DeLorean being a rear wheel drive vehicle and the Bolt front wheel, there was some amount of component reshuffling to do. The motor is now in the rear of the car along with the main contactor, charger, and motor controller while the batteries are split between a pack in the original engine compartment and another up front under the hood.

The electric power steering and brake booster from the Bolt now also live under the hood, and the accelerator and steering column from the EV were transplanted into the cockpit. [Carlson] still needs to tidy up the interior of the car which is currently a nest of low voltage cables as well as add the cooling system which will bring this stainless monster up to a hefty 3200 lbs (~1450 kg) versus the original 2850 lbs (~1300 kg). We suspect the total bill came in a bit lower than getting an electric DeLorean Alpha5.

This isn’t the first electric DeLorean we’ve covered here, and if that isn’t cool enough, how about this DeLorean-inspired hovercraft?

Continue reading “A DeLorean With An Electrifying Secret” →