Red Bull Creation Spawns Wheelie Mobile, Spinning See-Saw, And Other Crazy Contraptions

Red Bull gives you wings, right? Well, apparently it also gives 16 teams the energy necessary to build brand new and quite random inventions as a part of Red Bull’s annual Red Bull Creation event. In a nutshell, Red Bull throws out a secret theme at the very beginning of the weekend and teams are asked to create gizmos and gadgets that exemplify that theme, all in a matter of 72 hours.

This year, it was “Energy In Motion,” and that’s exactly what we saw there. From spinning see-saws to a “WPV” (wedgie-powered vehicle), imagination was certainly not lacking at McCarren Park in Brooklyn yesterday.

It would be almost stupid to try and describe what we saw there without images:

Maker: Innovative Thirst
Creation: A clay-powered mobile pod with suspended electricity-generating swing set.

Maker: NYC Resistor
Creation: A steam-powered off-road trolley car, with a nice bronze-style finish.

Maker: Hack RVA
Creation: A hacked up shopping cart that does its own hardcore poppa-wheelies, fittingly named the Wheelie Mobile.

Maker: Donner Party 2.0
Creation: A electric hybrid tricycle fitted with a dryer that also works as a humongous blender. Strawberry daiquiris anyone?

Maker: Team Doublewide
Creation: A robot called “The Amazing Cyclo.” Think Johnny 5, but as a puppet, with an LCD face and a single wheel made of shoes for a foot. And a remote control, of course.

“Team Award” Winner: Techshop
Creation: A spinning see-saw that lifts riders 12 feet in the air, while an accelerometer waits for the perfect moment to trigger an attached Polaroid camera, ultimately grabbing amusement-park-style candids of the riders’ faces.

Drum roll please! And the winner is…

Maker: 1.21 Jigawatts
Creation: Alright, this one’s a bit more difficult to explain. Basically, 1.21 Jigawatts wired an enormous wooden hamster wheel into a wireless network and gave it its own phone number. According to its maker, the massive wireless wheel could receive up to 60,000 one-word text messages at the same time, and then print out the texts on the pavement by rolling along the ground. In all honesty, the only purpose of this contraption is to make people stop in their tracks, drop their jaw, and stare. Obviously, that’s exactly what 1.21 Jigawatts created: a show-stopper.

Team Award winner Techshop went home with a brand new Makerbot 3D Printer, which creates little 3D sculptures from a scanned images (pictured below). 1.21 Jigawatts, Red Bull Creation’s grand prize winner, left the show with $5,000 and four 40W Hobby Laser Cutters.