Fan-powered shopping cart buzzes around MIT

Energy & Sustainability
Fan-powered shopping cart buzzes around MIT
fankart2.jpg

Charles Guan of lolriokart fame is back with his latest creation, the FANKART!!! 2 propeller-powered shopping cart. Why would you build something like this? Well, to show up another group of geeks researchers, of course:

Huge and Electric are two words that appeal to me greatly. Couple that with my history in combat robots which has caused me to lose all sense of self-preservation around high-speed spinning objects, and it meant that I was going to build a vehicle with EDF thrusters sooner or later. Plus, since Chuckranoplan was destined to be electric, it was good practice.
Then came word of MIT Talaris.
In short: Electric ducted fan supported platform reduces the apparent weight of the experimental lander vehicle by 5/6ths in order to test operation in the Moon’s gravity… without actually, you know, going to the Moon. After being shown their test videos, I decided to build myself a ducted fan thruster that was bigger than theirs.

The project page has a great discussion of the design considerations and issues that he ran into while building the project. Looks like fun!

8 thoughts on “Fan-powered shopping cart buzzes around MIT

  1. teamtestbot says:

    For what it’s worth, Fankart! 2’s video is here:
    http://techtv.mit.edu/collections/etotheipiplusone/videos/7811-fankart-2-

    The video posted is for Fankart 1.

    1. Matt Mets says:

      Oh, thanks for pointing that out! Should be corrected now.

  2. John B says:

    is anyone else curious as to why there’s a draw labeled Celeb Sunglasses?

    1. teamtestbot says:

      :)

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