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Awesome Wheels

Formula 1 One Wheel Skateboard

Formula 1 One Wheel Skateboard

The Q has a love for Formula 1 racing. But we’re guessing from his past projects that he can’t afford to own a real F1 race car. He does however have a single F1 wheel and tire, so he got to work building a custom electric skateboard that rolls on it. It works much like the Onewheel, though it’s a bit trickier to straddle.

Color-Changing Bike Wheels

Color-Changing Bike Wheels

The Q couldn’t decide what color tires to put on his bicycle, so he attached RGB LED light strips and diffusers inside of his wheels, wired them up, then modified his airless bike tires to fit around the lights. after adding a battery pack hub to the wheel, he was all set with his amazing bike tires that can change colors on demand.

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How Train Wheels Are Made

How Train Wheels Are Made

This sped-up video shows how workers produce those big steel wheels for trains. They start with a rod of molten-hot metal, flatten it with a mechanical hammer, work it into a clean round disc, press grooves in the wheel, then punch a hole into its center for an axle. Here’s how a more automated factory does it.

Riding on Wooden Mountain Bike Wheels

Riding on Wooden Mountain Bike Wheels

We already know it’s possible to build an entire bicycle out of wood. But how durable are wood wheels when pushed to their limits? Mountain biker Sam Pilgrim fitted his bike with some custom wood wheels and put them to the test on a forest trail, a pump track, and even a staircase. They held up way better than we expected.

Wheel of Springs

Wheel of Springs

Normally, a vehicle’s suspension sits between the frame and the wheels to absorb shocks. After seeing a vintage photograph of a car wheel with springs built into it, the car hackers at Garage 54 built their own to see how it would affect ride quality. It sounded like a busted shopping cart after the rubber came off.

Making an Omni-Sphere Vehicle

Making an Omni-Sphere Vehicle

Engineer James Bruton is fascinated with omni-directional wheels. For this video, he set out to make a vehicle that rolls on three split-hemisphere balls which can move in any direction. He’s since added a seat to it, resulting in what is basically the world’s most powerful office chair.

LEGO Sunflower Worm

LEGO Sunflower Worm

The Brick Bending channel has made some really creative LEGO builds, often by combining lots of flat bricks into geometric patterns. For this construction, they assembled more than 3100 1×6 plates into star-shaped sections, then layered them together to create a jiggly rolling structure lovingly known as the Sunflower Worm.

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Hand-Powered LEGO Speed Experiments

Hand-Powered LEGO Speed Experiments

It’s pretty easy to get a LEGO wheel spinning fast with a motor, but what about with human power? The Brick Experiment Channel set up a LEGO flywheel and gear mechanism which he proceeded to spin using only his fingers and a piece of string. He measured the rotations using a laser and a marker to calculate its speed.

Torque Multiplier Lug Nut Wrench

Torque Multiplier Lug Nut Wrench

Getting lug nuts off of a wheel can be hard work. This ingenious gadget makes easy work of the job using a crank and gearing that amplify your input by a 15:1 ratio to turn stubborn lug nuts without power tools. Just be careful not to overtighten them going the other direction. The set includes 17mm, 19mm, and 21 mm sockets.

Making DIY Airless Tires

Making DIY Airless Tires

Inspired by the expensive airless tires seen on construction equipment and concept vehicles, The Q set out on a mission to make his own shock-absorbing, puncture-proof bike tires using a similar design. What’s even more impressive is that he built them using only PVC pipe, nuts, bolts, and the tread from a standard bike tire.

Walking Wheels

Walking Wheels

Wheels are good at maneuvering vehicles over most surfaces, but they’re not always great at climbing irregular or rough obstacles. Engineer James Bruton fabricated these unusual “Pedrail” wheels that use a system of articulated “legs” and “feet” to roll and walk over uneven terrain. They look cool, but are they practical?

Brick Bending a LEGO Wheel

Brick Bending a LEGO Wheel

YouTube channel Brick Bending specializes in creating unexpected geometries using LEGO bricks. This satisfying video shows how they built an oversize wheel using three kinds of hinged components in a repeating pattern. We imagine you could use this method to build a wheel as large as you want, given enough bricks.

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Omni-Directional Ball Robot

Omni-Directional Ball Robot

Inspired by Goodyear’s concept for a ball-shaped tire, engineer James Bruton created a spherical wheel that can roll in any direction. After validating the design, he built a trio of the wheels and attached them to a robot as a testbed for the technology. We’re impressed with the little fella’s agility.

Making a Stove from Wheel Rims

Making a Stove from Wheel Rims

Wheel rims from a car seem like an odd material for building a wood-burning stove, but that’s exactly what André Göbel of Create Custom Designs did, a set of old steel rims to provide the structure for a cylindrical stove inspired by Bullerjan stoves, which use bent pipes to circulate cold air from the bottom and out of its top.

Saw Blade Bicycle on Ice

Saw Blade Bicycle on Ice

We already know that using saw blades as wheels can provide traction on ice. With this in mind, The Q replaced the wheels on his bicycle with gigantic circular saw blades, then took it for a little spin on a frozen lake. We know it looks cool, but it seems like this could end very badly.

Changing a Tire on a Spinning Car

Changing a Tire on a Spinning Car

Being able to change a car tire is an essential skill that everyone should learn. Stunt driver Terry Grant has figured out how to change a car tire while the car is still in motion. Back in 2010, he set a Guinness World Record for the fastest wheel change on a spinning car, a feat he managed to achieve in 3 minutes, 10 seconds.

Revolve Foldable Wheel

Revolve Foldable Wheel

Revolve splits the tire into segments, which are then mounted on a hexagonal frame. The frame lets you collapse the wheel into a pod that’s 60% smaller than normal. Inventor Andrea Mocellin hopes it will lead to transforming and compact transportation devices.

Bridgestone Air Free Bike Tires

Bridgestone Air Free Bike Tires

Based on a similar, but simpler design to their airless car tire concept, Bridgestone is showing off a bike wheel and tire combo which use a series of flexible thermoplastic spokes to absorb shocks and can never go flat. They hope to put them into production by 2019.

Monkey Light Automatic

Monkey Light Automatic

The latest gen wheel illumination from MonkeyLectric is designed to automatically turn on and off as you pedal, displaying bright and eyecatching colors and designs as your wheels spin. A new hub-mounted rechargeable battery makes them easier to use than ever.

Mecanum-wheeled Robots

Mecanum-wheeled Robots

These unusual wheels have found their way onto fork-lifts and other machinery in recent years, allowing vehicles to maneuver in all directions, and in very tight spaces without a steering rack. Here, we see some Robotnik Summit XL OMNIs strutting their stuff.

Ridiculous Rims

Ridiculous Rims

Footage of a drop-top Nissan Murano sporting a set of insane 34″ Amani forged wheels. The proportions of the Murano convertible were already wacky, and adding these crazy rims just make it more so. Also, we wouldn’t want to drive it faster than 20 mph.

Alloygators

Alloygators

Protect the pricey rims on your car from getting curbed with Alloygators. These durable strips fit between your rim and tire to absorb any dings or scratches, and can be cleaned up to look good as new. Available in both bright accent colors and stealthy black or alloy hues.

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