Technology for Luddites
“Kick sleds are the Scandinavian answer to winter bicycling. Kick sleds look like Zimmer frames on runners, or like a dog-less dog sled. Like bicycles, they increase the rider’s speed and freighting capacity while demanding very little extra physical input. Unlike bicycles they have no moving parts and are very easy to maintain”.
Kick sleds are sold by Esla, Kickbike, Norax en LjusdalsSparken.
Anti-skid detachable safety soles are a useful accessory.
Kevin Kelly notes an emerging category of street technology which might be called Jailhouse Tech:
“The material constraint of a prison inspire fantastic innovation and re-use of made parts. A lot of the devices made in this manner are crude weapons, but others include eating implements, tattoo instruments, music, and other tools.”
Above you see an electric cooking stove made with wire and brick. Kelly previously linked to Escape Devices, the work of photographer Marc Steinmetz. Also of note is Prisoner Inventions
Reader Sergio Carratalá informs us of yet another recent example of timbrel vaulting – a medieval building method that we described extensively in “Tiles as a substitute for steel“.
It concerns the Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre in South Africa, designed by Peter Rich Architects from Johannesburg. The project won the World Building Award at the World Architecture Festival (WAF) held in Barcelona last month.
The Mapungubwe Interpretation Centre, which is built to house artifacts from the region’s prehistory, was constructed using local materials and using the skills and labour of local people. Unemployed South Africans were trained in the manufacture of earth tiles and in building the
timbrel vaults.
Timbrel vaulting (or “Catalan vaulting”) is being rediscovered as an ecological building technique because it saves large amounts of building materials and thus embodied energy. This also makes it a cheap building method, at least in regions were hand labour is affordable. Via Sergio Carratalá.
More pictures below (courtesy of Peter Rich and the WAF).
“I have endeavoured in the following pages not only to interest the practical amateur in a branch of mechanics unfortunately much neglected, but also to present a series of practical original designs that should prove useful to every reader from the youngest to the most advanced.”
Chapter 1 : windmill evolution
Chapter 2 : a small working model windmill
Chapter 3 : a small American type windmill
Chapter 4 : a small working windmill
Chapter 5 : a practical working windmill
Chapter 6 : production of electricity by wind power
Windmills and wind motors – how to build and run them (1910).
Related:
Reader Mathew Lippincott (check out his mutoscope) points us to Kinematic Models for design (KMODDL), an open access, multimedia resource for learning & teaching about kinematics and the history & theory of machines.
The core of this wonderful museum is the Reuleaux collection of mechanisms and machines, a set of 19th century models built to demonstrate the elements of machine motion (more collections here). Also of interest are the tutorials and this extensive list of online references.
KMODDL also has 3D-printable models (see the multimedia section) and some of these have stereolithography files. They can be viewed with Meshlab. Thank you, Mathew!
This engraving, published in 1798, shows the gigantic St. Malo raft, designed in 1791 during the French Revolution. The engraving informs us that this extraordinary structure was 600 feet long by 300 broad, mounts 500 pieces of cannon, 36 and 48-pounders, and is to convey 15,000 troops for the invasion of England. In the midst is a bomb-proof, metal-sheathed citadel.
