Awesome Stuff: People Powered Vehicles
from the step-step-kick dept
For this week's awesome stuff of interesting crowdfunding projects, we'll take a look at a few attempts to rethink people-powered vehicles. This is clearly a popular concept on Kickstarter as it was just a few months ago that we had a few more examples, but these are all new from that last one.- First up, we've got the Me-Mover, which looks like a cross between a step machine and a scooter. In some ways, it reminds me of elliptical bikes, but actually looks much smaller and more functional.
- Next up is the Paperino, a traditional kick-scooter, but designed to match the style of the classic Vespa motorscooter. While this is still in the concept stage, I actually think these guys may run into legal issues with Piaggio, the makers of the Vespa. I notice that the Paperino team is careful to avoid naming Vespa anywhere, but the style cues are fairly obvious, and most of the scooters they show as their "inspiration" are Vespas. As cool as it looks, you'd think they'd be a bit more careful to not follow the Vespa's design so closely.
- These next two I'm going to lump together, as they're both similar... and in some ways equally ridiculous. They're both pontoon-based water vehicles with propellers. One is powered by a bicycle and the other by an elliptical. The the Seahorse Bicycle Powered Boat and the Aqua Elliptica (should be obvious how each is powered). Both look fairly bizarre, though, the Aqua Elliptica's presentation is at least moderately more professional.
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Filed Under: awesome stuff, scooters
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pavement diving
The pavement-kissing principle is a reason why bicycles have always had large-diameter wheels, and I assume why scooters traditionally didn't have pedals. Something I don't quite understand, is that although bicycle makers always show riders wearing helmets, these dangerous kickstarter contraptions never do.
At least Techdirt's last-month post of a similar price/similar design 3-wheeler, Halfbike ( https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140315/11280126584/awesome-stuff-pedal-power.shtml ) had a somewhat-decently-sized front wheel -- still dangerous, but less so.
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people powered machines.
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