A new product might be hitting a store near you, if this ever gets manufactured on a large scale. In short, the Speed Vest it a biking vest that shows the motorcycle's speed on the back of the rider, in lighted numbers, while aiming to is improve rider conspicuity while legitimizing bicycle speeds on the roadway.



The system has three parts: a wheel speed sensor, a wearable numeric display made from electro-luminescent wire and a small computer that controls everything. Its ingenuity won it the first prize in the Hub Bike Shop’s Bike Gadget Contest in Minneapolis, MN and was scheduled to undergo some speed tests. Who know, we might actually see it in action in the future.

For full details and more pictures, check out the mykle system labs blog.

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Impressive? You won't ever see this motorcycle on a road: it's a PC case mod by Russian Dennis “Xooler” Ilyin.



This design was entered in a case modding sponsored by NVIDIA and won second place. Did it deserve first place? I'm not sure, you can check out the entries here (the site is in Russian, unfortunately).

One more photo after the jump.



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What would you do with a lot of losing lottery tickets? Probably throw them away. But not if you're an artist...



Brooklyn-based artists Adam Eckstrom and Lauren Was collected $35,000 such tickets and built a car. And not a Smart or a Mini - it is a Hummer H3.

Beside looking very cool, the piece, called "Ghost of a Dream," also has a message behind it. Was and Ecktrom came up with the idea when they realized that most people think of buying a car when they dream about winning the lottery - hence the name of the project. They also wanted for the paper Hummer to contain the value of a real working Hummer, and they succedeed.

See after the jump for more pictures.

















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This impressive motorcycle is the work of Tom Sepe, who converted a 1967 Tote-Gote, one of the first off road motorcycles, into an electric steampunk work of art.



The motorcyle was fitted with a 15 hp motor, the kind used in electric motorcycle racing, and a steam boiler made from a fire extinguisher tank. The boiler isn't connected to the wheels however, and it's only used for visual steam effects. Says Sepe: "But on the other hand, if I crank it up really high, then you get flames shooting out the back of the bike. Which is cool."

After the jump, a movie of the motorcycle in action. For more details and photos, check out this interview with Tom Sepe.



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These ingenious toy cars and motorcycles come from several parts of Africa, and they are only made from scrap metal, tins, wire and pieces of leather. Nothing much to say, so we'll leave you with some photos.


The wheels are made from spray cans. Made in Ghana.


Wire motorcycle from Kenya.


Tin cars from Ghana.

You can see more on the AfriGadget blog or in the AfriGadget Flickr pool.

Case mods are ever-popular, and more than one car lover has tried to turn his PC into something more interesting (and car-themed, of course). One such person is user bschoot on the TheBestCaseScenario boards, who made a mod based on "Tanya", a 1997 911 Twin Turbo Porsche from the movie Gone in 60 Seconds.

What this guy did was buy a 1/6th scale RC car for $60 and work on it. He repainted it, rewired the headlights and brake lights, added some neons, and then installed a motheboard inside it.

More pictures after the jump. For all the details, check out the original forum post.




















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An enterprising person called Leah Buechley came up with an ingenious solution for cyclists or bikers: a jacket with turn signals on its back. She used the LilyPad wearable e-textile technology developed by herself, which is especially designed to have large connecting pads so that the LilyPads can be easily attached to clothes.



The jacket uses a LilyPad Arduino Mainboard and LEDs, and the signals are controlled through wrist-mounted switches.

According to comments on Buechley's Flickr photo, there is already a patent for a similar type of clothing: High visibility safety garment.

You can find all the LilyPad products here.

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The Autonomous Drifter is a project from Chris of PyroElectro, who transformed a regular RC car into a computer-controlled car.

Only the remote was actually modified (through a process explained in detail over on the site), and by connecting it to a laptop the car can be keyboard-controlled. In order to make it "autonomous" like the name says, you have to use a free script and input commands (such as a "W" to indicate the car should move forward, followed by the amount of time it should do that, and so on). Getting it to do something really impressive probably takes a lot of time and skill, though.


This video shows both modes of operation.

Smoking can kill you, but you might as well do something to get your 15 minutes of fame before you die, right? If the guy who created this smoked all those cigarettes - stop it, dude! But maybe he just gathered the pack, which is sort of eco-friendly - I know my brother used packs he found on the ground and made robots.

Feast your eyes on this great model of a Lamborghini Reventon, entirely made from cigarette packs. The level of detail is awesome.



Two more pictures after the jump.






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Once again, cool motorcycle-related art. Brazilian artist José Geraldo Reis Pfau has created a series of motorcycle miniatures from watch parts. You can see a small sample of pictures below, but there are many more available on the artist's website.









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