It’s no secret that we at Carectomy have a bit of a bike fetish. The smog-free human-powered machine offers the world a one hundred year-old solution to its transportation needs.
Thanks to the Innovate or Die – Pedal Powered Machine Contest, we’ve seen bike technology tweaked and put to some interesting new uses. But the winner, the Aquaduct Mobile Filtration Device, could very well change the world.
The Aquaduct looks like a tricycle with a solid trunk area. That trunk contains a tank capable of holding enough water for a family’s daily use.
In addition to propelling the vehicle, pedaling the bike also sucks water from the rear tank, through an internal filtration system, and into a clean drinking water reservoir. The bike’s drive train can be disengaged while parked, and the Aquaduct used as a stationary filtration device.
Five California-based design students built the Aquaduct for rural, third-world countries where many people either walk for miles or use a motorized vehicle to retrieve water, and then use up time and energy to boil the water. The Aquaduct provides the transportation sans fossil fuel, eliminates the need for wood or other fuels to heat the water, and is emissions free.
Check out Aquaduct’s great video:
Innovate or Die was a contest searching for pedal-powered devices to offset climate change. The project was sponsored by Specialized Bicycles, Google, and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.
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Maintaining the subways and other light rail mass transit is the responsibility of ever resident of these cities, including those that don’t use them, probably more for those that don’t use them.
I am not a fan of more taxes as I think they slow the economy and growth but there is one tax that makes sense. A transportation tax. There should be more taxes for maintaining and expanding rail including gas taxes on drivers.