We all have that one road that we have to drive on that is in terrible condition. The potholes make you think your car is falling apart or ripples in the pavement feel like a rollercoaster. Roads are normally covered in asphalt, but that might not be the case for a Dutch city called Rotterdam.
Officials in Rotterdam are looking at installing the first plastic road surface made from recycled bottles. The cool part about this road surface is not only that it’s green, but also that it is quicker to install and is estimated to last three times a long as normal asphalt. That means less traffic during construction and fewer potholes down the road.
The plastic roads are also hollow making it easy for the city to route cables and pipes underneath. They might even be heated so ice doesn’t accumulate. Unless the plastic roads are significantly more expensive I don’t see why these won’t turn up all around the world. The company behind the new road material hopes to install its first road in the next three years.
[via The Guardian]
There’s a lot to be said about taking a perfectly simple aesthetic gesture and turning it into a guide for the public. In this case it’s a couple of laser beams stopping humans or vehicles from crossing paths at the same time. This design by HOJOON Lim goes by the name Guardian and will bring a perfect stop to a crash that could have been near you.
Designer: HOJOON Lim
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(Laser beams keeping crosswalks safe was originally posted on Yanko Design)
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This looks like a ton of fun for kids (ok and adults). It’s the Chalk City Road Maker. Simply insert the included, or any standard size sidewalk chalk into the holders and you can easily draw perfect parallel lines to create “roads” on your driveway. There are two different sets of stencils (sold separately) to draw road signs and markers.
Make something that looks like this (yes that’s an adult riding an adult sized big wheel):
The other great thing about the road maker is that you don’t have to bend down to draw the roads. Great for kids of all ages. The Road Maker folds up for easy storage and transportability. Turn your driveway into an awesomeway.
The decision to invest in an electric vehicle would be much easier to justify if the car in question offered unlimited range. That appears to be the concept behind a Toyohashi University research group's wireless power prototype, which can successfully transmit electricity through a 10 centimeter-thick concrete block. During a demonstration in Yokohama, Japan, the team sent between 50 and 60 watts of power through a pair of concrete blocks to two tires, which then juiced up a light bulb (you can see the rig just above). The project is called EVER (Electric Vehicle on Electrified Roadway), and could someday be used to keep cars moving along a highway without any need to pull over for a recharge, thanks to a constant stream of electricity coming from below the road. There are some serious obstacles to overcome before EVER can get some wheels turning -- namely, a need to pump nearly 100 times the current maximum load through concrete that's twice as thick as what they've managed today, not to mention improving undisclosed efficiency levels -- but the group reportedly said that it's up to the task, making us fairly optimistic that such a solution could one day get us from A to B without petrol. Until then, you'll probably want to plan out a pit stop or two before you leave the garage.
Japanese group transmits electricity through 4-inch concrete block, could power cars on roads originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 Jul 2012 00:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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