PowerPlus system
Marcelo Martinelli
1. Describe the problem(s) you intend to solve and/or the preferred state you intend to achieve.
We all know the advantages and inconveniences of the car like massive product of the current society. We also know about the quantity of resources that are assigned for their development and to diminish the negative effects of their use, for example:
- The indefinite extension of our cities
- The dependence of all type of fuels (biological or
fossils)
- The progressive decrease of the quality of life and environmental conditions
- Speed, tension and risk of accidents (drivers and pedestrians)
- The limitation of the individual freedom and technology options, (we choose variations of a single vehicle type)
We say that cars, as personal vehicle, will take decades in becoming a sustainable vehicle. Meanwhile, many designers look at the future of the personal transport through the HPV (Human Powered Vehicles), as direct answer to the urgent necessities of reduction of consumption energy, bigger simplicity and improvement of our world habitat.
2. Describe your solution and your plan to implement it.
Is a simple solution possible to the personal transport of the future?
Without motors, without fuel, without contamination?
Evidently, solve successful as the bicycles they don't have enough power, speed, security and comfort like to be a competitive urban vehicle (although we have advanced a lot with the development of the current recumbents, trikes and velomobiles.)
PowerPlus advances one more step in the mechanical HPV by means of the application of an additional lever ( variable geometry) that allows remarkable increases of power (from 3 to 5 times according to the geometry).
View image 1
Also, the system is universal, allows an application over enough existent vehicles and new designs, and it adapts to different industry types and technological development (industrialized countries or not).
View image 2 and 3
PowerPlus is based on the following design concepts :
- We needed simple objects for a complex world
- We needed objects that solve our problems without creating more in the future
- We needed honest, discreet, elegant and aesthetic objects
- We needed universal solutions that adapt to the local contexts
- We needed objects that adapt to different technological capacities
- We needed friendly objects with the nature, derivatives of plural and diverse thought
- We needed objects that help to live on but free way
View image 4 , 5 and 6 (PowerPlus Microcar)
- The progressive decrease of the quality of life and environmental conditions
- Speed, tension and risk of accidents (drivers and pedestrians)
- The limitation of the individual freedom and technology options, (we choose variations of a single vehicle type)
We say that cars, as personal vehicle, will take decades in becoming a sustainable vehicle. Meanwhile, many designers look at the future of the personal transport through the HPV (Human Powered Vehicles), as direct answer to the urgent necessities of reduction of consumption energy, bigger simplicity and improvement of our world habitat.
2. Describe your solution and your plan to implement it.
Is a simple solution possible to the personal transport of the future?
Without motors, without fuel, without contamination?
Evidently, solve successful as the bicycles they don't have enough power, speed, security and comfort like to be a competitive urban vehicle (although we have advanced a lot with the development of the current recumbents, trikes and velomobiles.)
PowerPlus advances one more step in the mechanical HPV by means of the application of an additional lever ( variable geometry) that allows remarkable increases of power (from 3 to 5 times according to the geometry).
View image 1
Also, the system is universal, allows an application over enough existent vehicles and new designs, and it adapts to different industry types and technological development (industrialized countries or not).
View image 2 and 3
PowerPlus is based on the following design concepts :
- We needed simple objects for a complex world
- We needed objects that solve our problems without creating more in the future
- We needed honest, discreet, elegant and aesthetic objects
- We needed universal solutions that adapt to the local contexts
- We needed objects that adapt to different technological capacities
- We needed friendly objects with the nature, derivatives of plural and diverse thought
- We needed objects that help to live on but free way
View image 4 , 5 and 6 (PowerPlus Microcar)
Login to add/view comments
Additional Information:
Submitted by:
Marcelo Martinelli
Organization Details:
Patagonia National University
Chubut, Argentina
User login
For more information about the Challenge or the Buckminster Fuller Institute Please contact:
JenJoy Roybal
Program Manager
jroybal(at)bfi(dot)org
718 290 9283
Elizabeth Thompson
Executive Director
et(at)bfi(dot)org
718 290 9285