Living Car Free - Animal Petal Power! /crazy invention

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kcmasterpiece
02-06-08, 03:37 PM
hello forum,

I have been very disappointed with the amount of further development that would be needed for a overhauled American infrastructure to be an ethically green nation. Personally I am closer on the tribalism side of the environmentalist spectrum than the Green Industry inc. side.

I asked myself a question a year ago. How can the bicycle be improved upon to add more power and less human work and be more of a replacement for a car?

My imperfect conclusion was that we have to combine the power of animals with the efficiency of the bicycle. To date, the most efficient use of energy for transportation.

So with no experience in either animals or bicycle repair or building my quest began.

My invention is a tandem attachment for a harnessed dog to petal along with the bicycler. I have not gotten this to work yet but am searching for people that may be on the same level of innovation/crazyness as myself to provide insight.

The only obstacle from making this work I believe is training the dog to like the invention and not be scared and frightened like a little kid is after a first attempt at ridding a bike.

Heres is a link to an application submission with pictures I sent further explaining what is I have built.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YJEG5NMD

If nothing comes from it, learning to weld was cool.


Machka
02-06-08, 03:51 PM
I didn't realize that animals had petals. I thought it was just flowers.

kcmasterpiece
02-06-08, 04:02 PM
I didn't realize that animals had petals. I thought it was just flowers.

please forgive me catwomen. I meant "pedals" not "petals"


yes
02-06-08, 05:23 PM
^ How many Machkas are there?

Seriously, despite the typos, that's pretty neat. Can you make a video and post it on youtube? I'm sure it would get crap loads of hits.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOO4Q1T069Y

supcom
02-07-08, 08:24 AM
Use animals for transportation. What a novel concept.

Artkansas
02-07-08, 12:23 PM
As I recall, the Little Rascals had a fire engine powered by an internal goat engine. Their mule-powered Taxi was much more traditional.

fordfasterr
02-07-08, 01:01 PM
I think that dogs can make more power by walking on a flat surface.

For instance, make a very narrow (12") wide roller-platform that then turns the crank/chainring from one of the two rollers.

That will allow the dog to remain flat as he walks. Harnessing the dog from the back is all is necessary, since they can put a lot of torque pulling forward like in dog-pulling competitions.

Your contraption would need to look like a very small sized treadmill, attached to the same device that you have shown in the powerpoint presentation except that you can delete the big chainrings / crank arms all together.

Artkansas
02-07-08, 01:39 PM
Can you make a video and post it on youtube? I'm sure it would get crap loads of hits. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOO4Q1T069Y

Is that dog riding clipless? ;)

CommuterRun
02-07-08, 06:08 PM
What I'd like is a dogsled with wheels on it. Wheels to make it suitable for my location.:D