8 UNUSUAL, UNCONVENTIONAL, AWESOME INVENTIONS FOR 2013

Backyard Genius 2013: 8 Unusual, Unconventional, Awesome Inventions
By Amanda Green, Popular Mechanics, 6 September 2013.

Popular Mechanics’ Backyard Genius Awards return with incredible exoskeletons, folding kayaks, DIY roadsters, and more.

1. Giant Mechanical Leg

Inventor: Jonathan Tippett; Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Human amplification: That's the idea behind Jonathan Tippett's 6-foot-tall Alpha Leg - a multi-hinged structure of welded tubular steel fitted with hydraulic rams, dampers, and air springs, all articulated like the hindquarters of a dog. Tippett and his team of volunteers designed the 2860-pound leg to respond directly to the user's arm movements. It can move up and down and even jump up into the air, amplifying the force applied by the user by a factor of 100.

The leg also communicates force back to the controller. For example, when it lands with a thud, a proportional kick is sent into the arm of the user to give them physical feedback. And it's worth mentioning that the control seat is meant to be mounted on top of the leg, so that the user rides the machine and operates it at the same time Tippett admits that he hasn't actually tried that yet. In fact, the machine has been operational for only about 10 hours total so far, but that's about to change. A newly designed battery pack should free the leg from it's current restraints atop a flatbed truck, bringing Tippett one step closer to the machine he really wants to build: a giant, four-legged, human-controlled walking exoskeleton named Prosthesis. For more about the project, check out our full story.

2. Motorized Electric Longboard

Inventors: Sanjay Dastoor, Matt Tran, John Ulmen; Sunnyvale, California, USA.

Leave it to a Silicon Valley–based Californian to mechanize a longboard. John Ulmen built a prototype board with a lithium-ion battery, on-board computer, and lightweight brushless motors in May 2011, while he was still a mechanical engineering student at Stanford. Later that year he joined forces with fellow students Matt Tran and Sanjay Dastoor to create Boosted. "Everyone needs to get around, and there's something pure and simple about a longboard," Ulmen says. The team raised US$467,167 using Kickstarter; production units should be available by the end of summer.

3. Flying Remote Control Car

Inventor: Witold Mielniczek; Southampton, United Kingdom.

"The problem with cars is that they're only as good as the roads they drive on," says Witold Mielniczek, a doctoral student in computational engineering and design at the University of Southampton. Full-size vehicles will remain trapped on bad roads for some time, but, thanks to Mielniczek, toys now have a more uplifting alternative. His B flying car is a remote-controlled hybrid car–helicopter. He built a proof of concept with a polycarbonate chassis and 7-inch propellers inside each of its four 8.26-inch-diameter hubless wheels. A single charge of B's lithium-polymer battery delivers 15 minutes of combined driving–flying performance. With the flick of the controller's toggle switch, B transitions from land cruising, where it tops out at around 18 mph, to vertical take-off, up to 820 feet in the air, with a maximum speed of about 25 mph. An on-board HD camera records the entire journey. Mielniczek is currently awaiting a patent for B's Propelling Driving Unit. [More at Kickstarter and Facebook]

4. Desktop Milling Machine

Inventors: Danielle Applestone, Mike Estee, Forrest Green, Martine Neider, Jonathan Ward, Alana Yoel; San Francisco, USA.

The six-person team of engineers, designers, and makers at Otherfab understand the importance of the right tools. They came together nearly two years ago to work on Mentor Makerspace, a DARPA-funded education program that aimed to give thousands of high school shop classes access to the kinds of professional-grade machines, such as laser cutters and lathes, that are used in manufacturing worldwide. Otherfab then set out to create the perfect starter CNC machine, the Othermill, a high-precision milling machine that runs on easy-to-use software. After budget cuts killed Mentor Makerspace, the team decided to spin off Othermill as a consumer product. They raised US$311,657 on Kickstarter in May and will eventually seek venture funding for their mill, which, at US$1500, is more affordable than competitors' and also more versatile - it can mill out any material softer than stainless steel. "Othermill is a small-scale industrial tool," Applestone says, "but it's about as personal as it gets."

5. Origami Kayak

Inventor: Anton Willis; San Francisco, USA.

A tiny apartment forced architect Anton Willis to say goodbye to his beloved 15-foot kayak. Replacing it with a folding kayak with a US$2000-to-US$5000 price tag would've blown his budget. Plus, he says, "the folding kayaks some of my friends had weren't just expensive, they took up to an hour to put together, weighed 40 or 50 pounds, and felt flimsy." In 2008, with a design inspired by origami, he set out to create his own. After 25 prototypes - the first sank in 30 seconds - Willis developed the Oru Kayak. The 12-foot, 25-pound vessel is made of a single sheet of recyclable corrugated plastic that folds out of (or into) a compact case in 5 minutes. Now Willis's home project is a commercial product made in California. He and a small team started working on Oru Kayaks full-time in April 2012. They raised US$443,806 on Kickstarter and shipped first-edition Oru Kayaks that June. Since then his boat that fits beneath a bed has boomed.

6. Northwoods Planetarium

Inventor: Frank Kovac; Rhinelander, Wisconsin, USA.

Beneath the balsam fir and birch trees of Wisconsin's Northwoods sits the world's largest mechanical-globe planetarium. In 1996, after clouds obscured his view of the sky through a telescope, paper mill clerk Frank Kovac set out to build what would become his hometown's top attraction. "I knew I couldn't afford a projection system, but I decided to build a dome out of wood and use glow-in-the-dark paint for the stars," Kovac says. To show the night sky in different seasons, Kovac equipped the dome with a Dayton 120-VAC 1/2-hp DC Gearmotor to make it revolve around the audience. Though operating the planetarium is now his full-time job, Kovac is still in awe: "I built my dream," he says, "and I still can't believe I got it to work."

7. Bitcoin ATM

Inventor: Josh Harvey, Zach Harvey, Matt Whitlock; Manchester, New Hampshire, USA.

Bitcoin, a digital, decentralized currency, is tough to get your hands on. First, you have to wire money from your account into a digital Bitcoin exchange, then wait for the transaction to go through; then you have to bid on the rapidly fluctuating virtual currency, then wait again. Finally, once your bid is accepted, a bitcoin will arrive in your cyber wallet. Matt Whitlock and brothers Zach and Josh Harvey think the process should be simpler. "We want to make it really easy for the average user to get bitcoins," Zach Harvey says. Specifically, they want to make it as easy as getting money from an ATM. The team worked with a product designer in Portugal to create the world's first bitcoin ATM, a sheet-metal contraption that holds a Google Nexus 7 tablet and the same kind of bill validator used in casinos. Scan your smartphone, insert some bills, and, voilà: You've instantly turned real cash into virtual money. [More]

8. Bespoke Vintage Roadster

Inventor: Blaine Dehmlow; Brentwood, California, USA.

When Blaine Dehmlow became general manager of TechShop San Francisco, he finally had the tools and community to turn his love of vintage race cars into something tangible. The gearhead designed his roadster with Autodesk CAD software, printed out patterns for each part, and cut them out using the shop's waterjet. After just a few months he had an actual car, equipped with a Citroën chassis and a BMW R1150RT motorcycle engine.

Related Links:

1. Backyard Geniuses: 10 Incredibly Cool DIY Projects

2. Building a Giant Mechanical Exoskeleton, One Six-Foot Leg at a Time

3. LIVE BLOG: Test Drives on the Outside, Geniuses Inside

4. Backyard Genius : 10 Ingenious Amateur Builds for 2012

5. The DIY Backyard Rollercoaster: Backyard Genius Awards

6. DIY Cave House: Backyard Genius Awards

7. Space Ballooners: Backyard Genius Awards

8. Wooden Clockworks: Backyard Genius Awards

9. DIY Submarine: Backyard Genius Awards

Top image: B flying car, via Kickstarter.

[Source: Popular Mechanics. Edited. Top image and some links added.]