Check out the winning bike from Innovate or Die Pedal-Powered Machine Contest. The Aquaduct is a three-wheeled bike intended for people who lack access to clean drinking water. Built around a large tank, the Aquaduct Mobile Filtration Vehicle uses pedal power to run the water through a series of filters. If a rider reaches home before the entire water has been cleaned, he or she can disengage the wheels and continue pedaling and, thus, filtering while stationary. It looks like they’re trying to market the bike to people in third world countries who don’t have sufficient water filtration. It’s a cool idea, but probably a little flawed.
The people that this would most benefit probably work for
less than a dollar a day. A bike like this is definitely not an option for
them. It would be at least a couple hundred dollars. That’s a year of saving
every penny you earned. Probably not worth it. Not only that, but families in
developing countries are generally larger than the average American family. A
family of four needs at least 20 gallons of water a day. That tank of purified water looks like it holds about two gallons. That’s 10 trips back and forth to your water source, just for clean water. Ten trips would consume most of your day and you’d require more water from all that exercise. You’d have to force your children into employment at an early age, since you spent the family’s savings on a strange looking bike, and now you’re so busy riding around on it that you can’t work. Video after the jump.
Via: Core77
