Turn any bike into a audible horse simulator

Trotify is a a wooden device that sits on the front wheel of your bike and makes it clop like a horse. This is the kind of simple mechanical whimsy that we need more of in the world.

Here is where you can learn more or order your own Trotify kit.

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Upcycled! A human-powered tree house elevator made from a bicycle and pulleys!

This human-powered elevator is cool on many levels. First of all, this guy needed an elevator for his tree house! That, in my opinion, is a good problem to have. Secondly, his solution is elegant and fun.

From the video description:

I have built a tree house (though it is not finished yet) that is nearly 30 feet up a tree. I got tired of climbing a ladder six and a half million times a day, so I made a bicycle powered elevator to solve this problem. Don't you wish you had one?

He's counter-weighted the bicycle on the pulley system so less power is required to raise and lower the rider. Next, he has threaded a thin cable that runs around the bike's back wheel and up a tube in front of the rider. When the bike is pedaled in the forward direction, the bike "rides" up the cable. The weight of the rider and bike, keep the back wheel tight against the cable. This means he can also used the hand-brake on the bike's back wheel when descending, as you will see in the video. This is a beautiful bit of engineering and I wouldn't be surprised to see it used elsewhere in the years to come.

Here's a link to a post about the bike elevator on the Colossal blog.

[ Thanks Christoph!]

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The Amazing Journey - a bicycle automaton with parallax effect

Automatist Keith Newstead has made many pieces featuring bicycles, but this one has got to be one of the most intricate and grand that we've ever see here at The Automata Blog. The automaton was a commissioned piece and is titled The Amazing Journey

Th Amazing Journey

Newstead explains the origin of the piece:

John Lau has asked me to make a different version of my automaton 'Brians Brilliant Bike'. He would like me to feature his wife, Vivien, surrounded by all of their pets. He wants the automaton to remember his wedding -- such a nice thing to do.

The depiction of the human characters, John And Vivien, is lovely.

The bold colors and menagerie of the animated creatures adds tremendous amount life to the piece. This is a video you can watch more than once. Did you notice the acrobatic mouse on the front wheel of the bike? The rabbit's swagger as it conjures? The gentle swaying of the snake?

Mechanically, there is a lot to take in: pulleys, belts, linkages, joints, rotating objects as well as the metal combined with wood. Most fascinating for me, is the extremely clever rotating background. By rotating several discs behind the scene at different speeds, Newstead has simulated a parallax effect with wood and paint!

As usual, the artist has some great in-the-making photographs of the automaton on his blog. Check them out.

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