Chip Yates is an extreme electric innovator. He has 18 world records in battery-powered vehicles of his own design. He designed and built the world’s fastest electric airplane as well as the world’s fasted and most powerful electric motorcycle. And he’s presenting today at Maker Faire!
Do you have a need for speed? At this year’s Maker Faire, there are two ways for you to test your vehicle building and racing chops. Both the Fun Bike Unicorn Club and the Power Racing Series challenge teams to build unique, DIY vehicles and bring them to Maker Faire for a series of friendly competitions.
Tony, Carlos, and Raul, students at Lighthouse Community Charter School in Oakland, have taken on an ambitious senior project they plan to exhibit at Maker Faire: converting a gas-powered truck to electric power. They’ve been working afterschool and weekends and already gave up at least one holiday to work on the conversion. These young men exemplify the self-motivation we see in so many maker projects.
While DIY automotive projects are nothing new, the options for modifying your vehicle are becoming increasingly diverse and accessible. As the Owner’s Manifesto states, “If you can’t open it, you don’t own it,” and this should apply to your manufactured vehicle as much as any commercial object.
The Power Racing Series is an event there teams from across the country modify plastic, electric ride on vehicles into full-fledged racing machines. Because setting up races is expensive, they’ve set up an indiegogo campaign so we can help support this maker event!
Here’s a potential game-changer: a two-wheeled, in-line motorcycle that won’t tip over, even if you try to knock it down. The team at Lit Motors envisions a world where nobody’s afraid to ride motorcycles because they’re as safe and intuitive as climbing into a car. At Maker Faire they’re showing off a prototype electric bike […]
This past Sunday, the New York Times had a piece by Bradley Berman about owners of the Nissan Leaf and how, as with the Prius, there is a growing community of Leaf hackers who are making improvements to their cars and some who are developing products around some of these hacks.
