Mahmut's kid in a helmet, riding the go-kart outside on pavement

Hoverboard Go-Kart Build Is A Delight To Watch

August 14, 2022 by Arya Voronova 4 Comments

Hoverboards have been an indispensable material for hackers building their own vehicles in the last few years. [Mahmut Demir] shows how he’s built a hoverboard-powered go-kart for his son. Unable to hack the board’s firmware, he instead set out to reuse the hoverboard without any disassembly, integrating it into the go-kart’s frame as-is. This build is completely mechanical, distinguished in its simplicity – and the accompanying six minute video shows it all.

This go-kart’s frame is wood and quite well-built, with the kind of personal touch that one would expect from a father-son gift. Building the vehicle’s nose out of a trashcan gave us a chuckle and earned bonus points for frugality, and the smiley face-shaped wheel is a lovely detail. As for the ‘hoverboard reuse’ part, the board is pivoted backward and forward, just as it normally would be. Rather than feet, the kart uses a lever that’s driven with two pedals through a pulley-string arrangement, giving granular speed control and the ability to reverse. It’s a clever system, in fact we don’t know if we could’ve done it better. You can see [Mahmut]’s son wandering in the background as [Mahmut] goes through the assembly steps — no doubt, having fun doing his own part in the build process.

[Mahmut] tells us he’s also added a remote off switch as a safety feature, and we appreciate that. We’ve seen hoverboards in go-kart builds before, as well as rovers, e-bikes, robot vehicles, and even mobility platforms. Truly, the hoverboard is a unicorn of hacker transportation helpers.
Continue reading “Hoverboard Go-Kart Build Is A Delight To Watch” →

Jet Powered Go Kart Built With RC Gear

March 16, 2021 by Lewin Day 16 Comments

Turbine cars never quite came to be, despite many experiments in the 20th century. Despite their high power output for their size, they’re just not well suited to land transport applications; even the M1A1 tank has been much maligned for its turbine power plant. That didn’t stop [Warped Perception] for throwing a jet on the back of a kart though, and it looks like a whole lot of fun. (Video, embedded below.)

The build starts with a garden variety gokart, with the piston engine and all associated running gear stripped off in haste. The RC-sized turbo jet is then mounted on an elegant aluminium bracket, neatly welded on to the back of the car. It’s hooked up with its electronic controller, with throttle controlled by an RC transmitter. It’s not ideal trying to steer one-handed with another on the stick, but these are the sacrifices made when parts don’t arrive in time.

Early testing revealed issues with air ingestion into the fuel line over bumps, but overall performance was impressive. Future plans involve a top speed run which we can’t wait to see. Of course, if it’s not outrageous enough for your taste, consider [Colin Furze’s] pulsejet build.

Continue reading “Jet Powered Go Kart Built With RC Gear” →

Huge 3D-Printed LEGO Go Kart Makes You The Minifig

April 19, 2020 by Mike Szczys 7 Comments

The LEGO Technic line is definitely the hacker’s flavor of LEGO. It brings a treasure trove of engineering uses that make axles, gears, pulleys, and motors a thing. The only problem is that it’s the inanimate minifigures having all of the fun. But not if [Matt Denton] has something to say about it. He’s building a huge 3D-printed go-kart with pieces scaled up 8.43 times the size of their LEGO equivalents. That’s large enough for an adult to fit!

You may remember seeing [Matt’s] previous attempt at something like this about three years back, but that was only around half the size of this one. He printed a blue kart for his nephew, but it didn’t quite scale up enough even for a child to ride. This one is impressively large, but that raises some interesting fabrication issues

The long beams that make up the frame of the vehicle and the axle piece (the black rods with an X-shaped profile) used for the steering column are far too long to print in one go. So the axle was printed in two parts with a square channel down the center that hides a single run of square tubing. But the beams are much more interesting. Printed in two parts, there’s a dovetail-shaped connector piece that holds the top joint together, and a hidden bolt for the bottom. Glue is also used along the joint to bolster the holding power of the mechanical fasteners.

In general, the weight and friction on this scaled up version need many considerations. [Matt] explains where he’s made design decisions — like perpendicular axle connectors that have proper bearings — to include mostly-hidden metal parts and fasteners to ensure the plastic doesn’t fail. The thing looks awesome, but just wait until you see the assembly process. It’s sooooo satisfying to watch the modular parts snap into place. The project’s still in progress and before he’s done he plans to add an electric motor to make the kart go.

Even if you’re not scaling a model up to full size, giant is a guaranteed recipe for fun. Case in point, [Matt’s] enlarged LEGO fork lift is a delight.

Continue reading “Huge 3D-Printed LEGO Go Kart Makes You The Minifig” →

Lego Go-Kart Scores Radio Control

December 1, 2017 by Lewin Day No comments

LEGO has always been an excellent toy for both play and learning, and the Technic sets are a great starting point for any budding engineer. Not content to rest on their plastic, blocky laurels, LEGO introduced more advanced parts over the years, such as motors and battery packs to allow builders to propel their creations. Combine this mechanical philosophy with [Matt]’s Giant Lego Go-Kart and you have one heck of a project.

It all started months ago, when [Matt] built his original Giant Lego Go-Kart, a 5-times scaled up model of the original kit #1972-1. Achieved through the wonder of 3D printing, he had sized it up based off the largest parts he could fit on his printer. The Youtube video led to commenters asking – could it be driven?

He decided that radio control was definitely a possibility. Not content to simply bolt on a series of motors to control the drive and steering, he took the effort to build scaled up replica LEGO motors, even taking care to emulate the old-school connectors as well. A particularly nice touch was the LEGO antenna, concealing the Orange RX radio receiver.

There were some hiccups – at this scale & with [Matt]’s parts, the LEGO force just isn’t strong enough to hold everything together. With a handful of zipties and a few squirts of glue, however, the giant ‘kart was drifting around the carpark with ease and hitting up to 26km/h.

In the end, the build is impressive not just for its performance but the attention to detail in faithfully recreating the LEGO aesthetic. As for the next step, we’d like to know what you think – how could this be scaled up to take a human driver? Is it possible? You decide.

[Harrison Krix’s] Marriott Chariot

October 25, 2014 by Marsh 6 Comments

Atlanta’s Mini Maker Faire had plenty of booths to keep visitors busy, but the largest spectacle by far was the racetrack smack-dab in the middle, and you’d be hard pressed to find a more eye-catching contender than [Harrison Krix’s] vehicle: the Marriott Chariot.

If [Krix’s] name looks familiar, that’s because he’s the master artisan behind Volpin Props, and is responsible for such favorites as the Futurama Holophonor replica and the Daft Punk helmet. (Actually, he made the other one, too).

The Chariot is yet another competitor in the Power Racing Series, an event that keeps popping up here on Hackaday. [Krix] drew inspiration from this Jeep build we featured earlier in the summer, and went to work sourcing an old plastic body to get started. The frame is 16 gauge square tubing, with a custom motor mount machined from 3/16 steel. After welding the chassis together, [Krix] chopped up a small bicycle to snag its head tube and headset bearings. A pair of sealed lead acid batteries fit horizontally in the frame, providing a slightly lower center of gravity.

[Krix] has a keen eye for precision and his build journal shows each step of his meticulous process. But, you ask, why “Marriott Chariot?” and why does the car look like someone threw up a kaleidoscope? Read on beyond the break, dear reader, to learn the Chariot’s origin and to see a video of it winding around the track.

Continue reading “[Harrison Krix’s] Marriott Chariot” →

Even More Power Wheels Racers

October 2, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 18 Comments

With the Power Wheels Racing series wrapping up for the year, the teams are winding down and writing up their build and rebuild logs for their cars. In previous years, the kids from MIT, a.k.a. MITERS, have brought small electric cars to the races, but nothing like this. It’s a true Power Wheels, or at least the plastic shell, an alternator, a huge battery pack, and a completely custom drivetrain.

[Dane], [Ben], [Rob], [Mike], and [Ciaran] started their build with an alternator that was salvaged from [Charles]’ Chibi-Mikuvan, added a motor from a CDROM drive for a sensor, and basked in the glory of what this cart would become. The frame was crafted from 1″ square tube, a custom disc brake machined, and a 10S2P battery pack built.

The alternator the team used for a motor had a rather small shaft, and there were no readily available gearboxes. The team opted to build their own with helical gears milled on the MITERS Bridgeport mill. That in itself is worth of a Hackaday post. Just check out this video.

With the build held together with duct tape a baling wire, the team headed out to the races in Detroit. Testing the racer before getting to Detroit would have been a good idea. During the endurance race, a set of 10″ rear tires were torn apart in just four laps, impressively bad, until you realize the smaller pink tires that were also from Harbor Freight fared even worse.

After a few races, the MITERS team figured out the weaknesses of their car and managed to get everything working perfectly for the race at Maker Faire NY.

Continue reading “Even More Power Wheels Racers” →

The Chibi-Mikuvan, Or A Power Wheels With A Ford Fusion Battery

September 30, 2014 by Brian Benchoff 19 Comments

At all the big Maker Faires, the Power Racing Series makes an appearance, turning old Power Wheels into race cars that whip around the track at dozens of miles an hour. [Charles] is somewhat famous in the scene – there’s even a clause in the official rules named after him – so of course anything he brings to race day will be amazing. It was. It used a battery pack from a Ford Fusion plugin hybrid, a custom body, and a water cooling unit from a dead Mac G5.

A few months ago, we saw [Charles] tear into the battery pack he picked up for $300. This is the kind of equipment that will kill you before you know you’ve made a mistake, but [Charles] was able to take the pack apart and make a few battery packs – 28.8v and 16Ah – enough to get him around the track a few times.

The chassis for the Chibi-Mikuvan was built from steel, and the bodywork was built from machined pink foam, fiberglassed, and finished using a few tips [Charles] gleaned from [Burt Rutan]’s book, Moldless Composite Sandwich Aircraft Construction. The motor? That’s an enormous brushless motor meant for a 1/5th scale RC boat. The transmission is from an angle grinder, and the electronics are a work of art.

The result? A nearly perfect Power Wheels racer that has a curb weight of 110 pounds and tops out at 25 mph. It handles well, too: in the videos below, it overtakes the entire field of hacky racers in the Power Wheels Racing competition at Maker Faire NYC, and afterwards still had enough juice to tear around the faire.

Continue reading “The Chibi-Mikuvan, Or A Power Wheels With A Ford Fusion Battery” →