Tired of waiting in long lines for the coasters at his local amusement park, John decided to build one right in his own backyard. You might think that the result would be a wussy little ride that you'd get bored with after the second run, but John's Blue Flash gets pretty ambitious, including a complete 360 degree loop. There's even a motor drive that pulls you up the starting ramp that's built over the roof of his barn.
Homemade roller coaster
Secrets of flying saucers discovered!
One of the things that makes flying saucers so fascinating is that they clearly use some crazy alien technology to zip around. No human-built planes can maneuver like that! If only! Well, now it looks like someone has figured out the secret to flying saucers: ionized air.
Engineering professor Subrata Roy of the University of Florida figured it out, and he plans to make a prototype showing off his discovery. How's it work?
The surface of the saucer-shaped craft will be covered with electrodes that, when powered by a battery or other power source, will ionize the surrounding air to create plasma. When charged with an electric current, the polarized plasma will repel the non-polarized air, creating lift and thrust. Such an aircraft would have very stable flight characteristics, with the pilot controlling it by diverting the electrical charge to different parts of the surface.
His initial prototype will be six inches in diameter, but he thinks its scalable to larger sizes. Just think, in 10 years we could all be scooting around in our own UFOs. Let's make this happen.
Via io9
High-tech horse training buggy today, bionic horses tomorrow
Sometimes the power of one horse is all you need — especially if that horse is one you're looking to train and keep tabs on. The Roush horse buggy lets its operator do just that, providing them with a steady stream of information about the animal's well-being, all the while trotting and galloping the horse at different speeds in a controlled manner, up to almost 40 mph. The cabin is mercifully motorized, and (as if the horse didn't have enough of a burden) it holds three: a driver, trainer and a vet.
Roush Technologies developed the buggy for horse-and-camel training equipment company Kurt Systems out of Turkey. Is this a bold new age for training super-horses or, like Ivan Drago from Rocky IV, will technological might still get trumped by an underdog horse with some heart? Roush expects the vehicle to enter production soon.
Check out the galley below for more shots of the Roush horse training buggy.
Concept car with rotating tires reminds us how terrible we are at parallel parking
The NASA concept car (which, as far as we can tell, has nothing to do with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, though it looks like astronauts are driving it) has some pretty radical features that are immediately appealing. It has a sleek hood rather than doors — keeping the passengers more stable and safe — and dynamic wheels that'll let you pull off hairpin turns, allow the car to move perpendicularly in a snap, and even spin in place.
Oh, how we wish a vehicle like this would come out already so we wouldn't have to smash off any more bumpers. And some protection up top for those heads poking out would be nice, too. It was designed by Czech students Marek Kedzierski and Michal Vlček, studying at the Tomas Bata University in Zlín.
Check out the gallery below for more of the NASA concept car
Stunning Ferrari Monza concept is ready for takeoff
While most crazy fast concept cars use aerodynamics to keep the wheels firmly planted on the ground, designer Iman Maghsoudi has taken the opposite tack with his wild Ferrari Monza concept. Once you reach a predetermined speed, an onboard computer changes the car's aerodynamic profile, using winglets called canards ahead of the front wheels to create lift which reduces friction. In most cases, the resulting vehicle would be called an airplane, but with the Monza, ground effects come into play to keep it on terra firma.
I'll admit that I'm no aerodynamic engineer, but this all sounds a little far fetched. Still, you've got to admit that it looks amazing.
Yanko Design, via Born Rich
2015 concept BMW certainly is futuristic
What are cars going to look like in the year 2015? Well, I'm guessing they're going to look kind of like our cars to day, but maybe a touch more aerodynamic. But hey, what do I know? When asked the same question, Transportation Design students at Turin-based IED (istituto Europeo di Design) came up with something quite a bit different.
The concept design for BMW they came up with looks like it belongs in 2115, not 2015. The BMW ZX-6 Concept by Jai Ho Yoo and Lukas Vanek is full of crazy curves and lines, and while yes, it is more aerodynamic, I'm not sure just how practical it is. But hey, maybe by 2015 we won't care about practical cars, instead purchasing our vehicles based solely on how crazy they look. If so, this one is a definite winner.
Via Ca Body Design
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