Old railway handcars appear in classic films as simple machines with a long beam that two people push up and down in opposite rhythm. That motion turns a crank and spins the wheels, sending the cart rolling along the rails at a steady, unhurried pace. Sam Barker and Tom decided the idea deserved a modern remake built almost entirely from plastic.
GRMNT pulled his grandfather’s old road bike out of storage and found a Bianchi built with real Tange steel tubing. Years of grime covered the frame, yet the metal underneath still held the clean lines and solid construction of a proper 1980s road machine. He cleaned it thoroughly, then set out to give the bike an electric boost that left almost no visible trace of the change.
Japan opened its first bullet train in 1964, timed for the Tokyo Olympics. That Shinkansen reached 210 kilometers per hour and showed the world what dedicated high-speed rail could do. Today those trains routinely clear 300 kilometers per hour, matching the takeoff speed of many commercial jets. The question the TED-Ed lesson asks is whether rail can ever outpace flight itself.
Storyteller Overland just put a nearly three-hundred-thousand-dollar price tag on a Ram 3500 that can sleep four, cook a full meal, and open its rear wall into an elevated outdoor platform. The GXV Wild arrives as the smaller, more agile member of the company’s Global Expedition Vehicles line, built to reach remote places while still offering real living space once you stop.
A German-built trailer that rolls behind a compact car by day and floats on calm lakes by night first rolled out more than a decade ago. Today the latest SEALANDER arrives with a fuller list of comfort options than any earlier version, ready for orders with deliveries that began in mid-2025. Daniel Straub’s idea took shape in the early 2010s and reached the market around 2014 as a lightweight hybrid of teardrop trailer and small motorboat.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo’s Rekimoto Lab built a backpack that turns ordinary jumps into something closer to a slow-motion bounce across the lunar surface. Called Lunavity, or Augmented Jump in the formal paper, the system straps a multi-rotor aircraft to your back and uses constant upward thrust to lighten your body so you can jump higher, stay airborne longer, and come down more gently.
Companies have spent years showing off car tires that never go flat. Michelin and others roll out concept designs built from polymer webs that support the load without a single molecule of air. Those prototypes look sharp in tech demos, but almost never reach actual cars. Mountain bikes face a harder version of the same problem. A sharp rock or thorn can end a ride in seconds. Sealant inside modern tubeless tires already stops most punctures, yet the dream of a tire that simply cannot lose pressure still pulls people in. Berm Peak, the popular mountain-bike YouTuber known for building and testing unusual gear, decided the only way to get a real airless mountain-bike tire was to make one himself.
Sunreef Yachts and BRABUS just put their names on the same boat for the first time. The result is the ULTIMA 55, a 55.8-foot carbon-heavy catamaran that treats open water the way BRABUS treats asphalt. Two 10.8-liter six-cylinder engines sit in the hulls, each making 533 kW or 725 horsepower. Combined output hits 1,450 horsepower and the boat clears 40 knots. An advanced hydrofoil system lifts the hulls higher as speed builds, cutting drag and almost erasing heel so the ride stays level and surprisingly quiet even when the throttles are pinned.
Daniel Riley spends his days turning ordinary hardware into machines that do more than expected. His latest project takes a small four-stroke engine of the type found on string trimmers and connects it to an electric motor normally used in skateboards. The result is a compact generator that produces up to 780 watts of electrical power. Installed in a boat, the assembly becomes the core of a hybrid drivetrain built around one clear goal: keep the gasoline engine running where it works best while the electric side manages everything else.
EarthRoamer builds expedition vehicles that blend heavy-duty truck toughness with the kind of self-contained living spaces most people only find in high-end homes. This 2023 XV-SX stands as a pre-roamed example with just 8,228 miles on the odometer and a full complement of factory options already installed. At $1.1 million it sits at the top of the price range for anything on four wheels that can still tackle serious trails while keeping occupants comfortable for weeks at a time.