home (KD jyw's page)
bike build # 1
bike build # 2
Bike Build # 3
Human Powered Amphibious Vehicle
July 13 in a contest against a Canadian Group
Added Parking Brake
| I added the parking brake because the amphibike
is HUGE and takes up a good deal of my garage. So whenever I work on something
I have to remove the bike, and it had a tendency to roll away. One bungy
attached to the brake leveler and we have a parking brake! |
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I also rode the bike to the Home Depot [twice now] (1.1 - 1.2 miles, 1.7 km, each way). It was a lot of fun. The bike is really efficient at rolling, a little hard to start from a dead stop, but on a slight uphill, I want the gear shift to work, and on a slight downhill, forget about it, your legs don't spin that fast. It takes a compact car parking space and looks so cool, I'm going to ride it there again to take a picture of it :) |
Updated pictures from day of sea launch
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Notes From the Build : |
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The Builders (plus the Video Dude, and a couple kids to make the picture
cuter) |
Hires
HiresNotes : much to my chagrin, she bobs like a cork. I had to actively stay center or she would roll over any direction I wanted to. Also the white foam we bought at home depot that advertises cleans up with water until set, then water tight, dissolves in salt water (slowly) so we did take on water, slowly. We got a prop set up, but did not have time to mount it.
The Video
MPeg 1 (16.5 Megs) Real Video (3 megs)
The Plan
Update we may not be able to get any donor boat so here is a quick sketch of a quick boat out of plywood, 2x2 and 2x4 wood
| The idea is to cut less than 2 sheets of plywood up and build a boat. The plywood is screwed into either a 2x2 (almost everywhere) or a 2x4 (where the bow is). Then the seems, on the inside, where the edges of the wood touch the plywood get spray foamed (water proof insulation / floatation). It would be good to spray the outside with water proofing (paint, poly urethane, etc.) but the boat should not be in the water long enough to be a big problem. The bicycle frame would be build to enclose this, and attach to it by straps, screws, etc.. At 2' tall x 2 wide x 6' long it would displace enough water to float just under a 1,000 pounds. Current thoughts, width same as my recliner chair, 2 rear wheels so that the axles would be under or through the rear of the boat if they were joined, right rear wheel drive, front steer on land, paddle steering in water, enough floatation materials tied on to prevent polluting bottom of lake. |
Last Sketch Prior to Build
rough
'show the idea' unrealistic sketch
The Reality
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| Sorry I couldn't wait, I was taking a picture of the bike and looked
at the front derailer of the original bike and said 'Aha that would be
a perfect chain guide', so I cut off the old one and welded the shwin
bike derailer into place. Hi res bike pic |
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It is ready for paddle power see (we think :), we did ride it around the block a little (the block the inner peddles are sitting on needs to be fasted to the bottom it turns out). Unfortunately it got dark as we were finishing so we could try it out in water. Two of our key people didn't show up till 5pm so we could not build the boat and the bike at the same time. They thought is was Saturday and the build was the next day, and then didn't check phone messages till 4pm! We failed the 6 hour challenge, but it is really cool and we are now on the JYW 10 + 1 challenge giving us 2.5 more hours next Sunday! These pictures are not great, I took most of them after cleanup on the build. I hope to get some great shots as we get ready to hit the water. A lot of fun, a lot of work. Bike dimensions 28" x 16" x 56" to the 16 x 16 - 45
degree bow |
Update Robert was inspired by this page and built his own. His plan, his build.
Original Challenge Page
Comments which may be added to this page : Email KD