Urban Transport
Prototype Torch bicycle helmet is like a lighthouse for your head
Los Angeles industrial designer Nathan Wills is an avid cyclist, but he has a gripe about most traditional bike lights – in order for them to really be noticed at night, they have to be seen head-on. He decided to create head and tail lights that were highly visible from the sides as well. While he was at it, he also positioned them higher than regular bike-mounted lights, and made them much more difficult to steal. The result is his prototype Torch T1 – a bike helmet with built-in luminous panels. Read More
Smart ebike cruises through final testing phase
Smart has provided some more information on the company’s first foray into transportation of the two-wheeled, pedal-assist variety. With help from the likes of parent company Daimler, the bike’s battery supplier, and GRACE, the Berlin-based e-Bike manufacturer that helped in its design, the smart ebike was put through its paces in February in Majorca to test the bike ahead of its impending release. Read More
The term "run" in the heading is perhaps a little generous, as the Rennholz trike can only actually go up to a top speed of 15 mph (24 km/h) for about ten minutes before needing a battery swap. Literally translated as Race Wood, it's by no means the only example of a drill-powered vehicle but the gorgeous curves of its shaped wood frame and familiar trike form factor make it much more of an eye-pleaser than, say, the University of Louisiana's Cajun Crawler. It was planned, designed and built by a team of product design students from HAWK University of Applied Sciences and Arts at Hildesheim in Germany for last year's Cordless Screwdriver Race and although it didn't actually win, the design did take both the Jury and Public awards at the race. Read More
Hornet velomobile comes with power boost included
If you take a recumbent tricycle and enclose it in an aerodynamic fuselage, what you end up with is known as a velomobile. The vehicles are significantly faster than bicycles on the flats and downhills, plus they offer more weather protection, but they do tend to be heavy – this can make hill-climbing quite an ordeal. Some manufacturers compensate for this limitation by offering electric assist motors as optional extras, although these just add even more weight, along with boosting what is already often a pretty high price tag. Toronto-based BlueVelo, however, has taken an interesting approach with its new Hornet velomobile. It was designed around its electric assist motor, which is included in the vehicle’s relatively low price. Read More
Go into any bicycle store, and pretty much all of the bikes in there will have frames made from metal tubes or carbon fiber. A few manufacturers have gotten a bit more adventurous, offering frames made of bamboo or wood, while some have even experimented with things like aramid panels and nylon. A trio of San Francisco-based entrepreneurs, however, have created a prototype bicycle using yet another frame material – hand-folded sheet metal. They claim that their product is lighter, stronger and cheaper to produce than an aluminum-tube frame, and they’re hoping to be able to sell you one. Read More
Big- and medium-budget film-makers looking for smooth tracking shots will soon have another alternative to laying down tracks for hand-pushed camera dollies. T3 Motion, the maker of the T3 electric standup vehicle, is launching a new version of its EV, designed specifically for use by cinematographers. Read More
Very little is known about this "single person transport system" concept dreamed up by the enigmatically-named product design student Sanu K R from Ernakulam on India's west coast, but one thing is clear: it's a head-turner. Read More
Specialized has just announced its new Turbo electric bicycle, which it claims is the fastest e-bike ever made ... a claim that the makers of the BlackTrail e-bike would likely dispute. Whatever the case, the Turbo's top motor-assisted speed of 45 km/h (28 mph) should definitely limit where it will be sold – in the U.S., Britain and most of Europe, for instance, it would be illegal. Nonetheless, limited numbers of the bike should reportedly be available for sale (although it hasn’t been stated in which countries) as of May. Read More
Giant plug for sealing off subway tunnels in a hurry
What’s the best way to plug a giant hole? Why with a giant plug, of course. That’s the thinking of the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T), which has created just such a giant plug to contain flooding or dangerous gases in mass transit tunnels. Measuring roughly 32 feet (9.7 m) long and with a diameter of 16 feet (4.9 m), the giant plug is an enormous inflatable cylinder that can be filled with air or water in minutes to quickly seal off a section of tunnel in the event of an accident, natural disaster or terrorist attack. Read More
Nobody likes potholes, but it often seems that they’re one of those hardships we just have to put up with until they get almost impassable ... after all, it’s a big deal to send out a road crew who will have to block one or two lanes of traffic for half an hour or more, while they risk being struck by inattentive drivers. Apparently, however, pothole-filling needn’t be such an involved process. Cities now have the option of using the Python 5000, which is a vehicle that is operated by one person from inside its cab, and that can patch a two-foot (0.6-meter) pothole in about two minutes. Read More
