Pedal-powered

Over the past several years, we’ve seen a number of bike-mounted products designed to charge the user’s phone using pedal power. Some of these have included the PedalPower+, the EcoXPower, Nokia’s Bicycle Charger Kit, and BioLogic ReeCharge Power Pack. One of the latest such devices, the Siva Cycle Atom, is hitting Kickstarter – and it's quite a bit more compact than most of the competition.  Read More

Shortly before that time of the year traditionally reserved for all manner of tomfoolery, the UK's Environmental Transport Association (ETA) released details of a pedal-powered Popemobile concept that many immediately assumed to be a joke. Gizmag caught up with its designer, Yannick Read of Hornster and Bond Bike fame, to find out if the environmentally-friendly pontiff-carrier proposal is genuine or fake.  Read More

Students at the University of Warwick have announced their intention to build a human-powered submarine to compete at that highlight of the human-powered submarine events calendar, the European International Submarine Races in 2014. The team of engineering students hopes that their vessel, already named HPS Shakespeare, will beat the current speed record for a single-seat human-powered sub.  Read More

The idea of living life on the road in an RV can be appealing. Unfortunately, most RV’s aren’t very environmentally friendly, nor are they self-sufficient. However, the Tricycle House isn’t like most RV’s, as it relies on pedal power to move between destinations, and boasts several pieces of clever folding furniture to provide those much-needed home comforts.  Read More

Just last week, we told you about the Rocking-Knit chair, a student-designed device that utilizes the user’s rocking motion to knit a hat. After lots of use, needless to say, such a hat would eventually get worn out. Instead of just throwing it away, however, you could recycle it – using another student-designed contraption, the unknitting machine.  Read More

The efforts of Maryland University's Gamera II team in snaring the US$250,000 Sikorsky Prize for human-powered helicopter flight have garnered much attention (not least from Gizmag) in recent months, and with good reason. But the team is by no means alone in chasing down its sadistic requirements set by the American Helicopter Society in 1980. First tested in August, The Atlas helicopter, by human-powered vehicle specialists AeroVelo, is the latest machine to enter the fray, and has already flown successfully, becoming only the fourth human-powered helicopter to do so.  Read More

Royal College of Art graduates Amos Field Reid and Lasse Oiva have put a new twist on the humble street vendor tricycle with Velopresso – a prototype mobile coffee making machine that uses pedal-power to grind the beans as well as turn the wheels.  Read More

The Gamera II team at the A. James Clark School of Engineering has certainly been keeping officials at the National Aeronautic Association (NAA) very busy this year. Kyle Gluesenkamp from the school's mechanical engineering department pedaled and cranked his way into the record books in June with a new official national record for human-powered helicopter flight with a time of 49.9 seconds, and now that too has been smashed. A new venue, and some vital modifications to the huge craft has resulted in the magic Sikorsky Prize 60-second barrier being surpassed for the very first time. Not only that, but Gamera II has also been taken up beyond eight feet before a serious crash landing put a stop to more record attempts.  Read More

The unofficial human-powered helicopter flight record set by Kyle Gluesenkamp from the A. James Clark School of Engineering's Gamera II team on June 21 2012 has just been ratified by the National Aeronautic Association (NAA). The new national record has now been submitted to the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale for approval as a new world record.  Read More