Drill-powered Wooden Go-kart


I’m a father of two little kids, so I’m always on a look for fun and interesting toys. Obviously the most interesting toys offer a ton of free play time for the kids, with bonus bonding time if there is some easily assembly. To date however, I was not convinced that I could make my own toys, at least not cool ones. Budget is always an issue too, and between LEGOs, Thomas train-sets, and Bruder trucks, it creeps up quickly. It’s a real struggle.
Some dad, somewhere, decided to create a go-kart for his son. His budget may have been limited and/or perhaps we wanted a challanging project to work on with his son. Whatever the case it, they built this little go-kart, which I think it’s pretty awesome considering that they used “only household items and parts from hardware store”
 

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  1. Peter Tanshanomi Avatar
    Peter Tanshanomi

    Kinda awesome.

  2. mdharrell Avatar

    Utterly brilliant powertrain.

    1. NotJustDucky Avatar
      NotJustDucky

      Except it seems like having the brake on the opposite wheel as the power could be potentially awesome problematic.

    2. Vairship Avatar
      Vairship

      It's simple and guaranteed to be unreliable in wet weather. Everything you could want, really!

  3. LEROOOY Avatar
    LEROOOY

    Wow, it moves a lot faster than I expected. This could leave a Power Wheels in the weeds! I wonder what the maximum range/time is on a charge. With some plastic wheels he might even be able to get some decent drift action.

    1. Sjalabais Avatar
      Sjalabais

      I wonder about the same thing. My DeWalt is done drilling after about 15 minutes of work. That's with the good battery, the other is dead. After three years. Replacement batteries are forbiddingly expensive after sending Li ion batteries from China became forbidden.
      Anyway, awesome idea! I have some leftover bikes that I want to build into a cart. Can't weld though, so I'm still trying to figure out how to do this.

  4. Rover_1 Avatar
    Rover_1

    That is impressive. And with not much more work you could have one of these from Toylander http://www.toylander.com/Toy_cars.php
    Scaled off the wheelbarrow wheels and tyres used.
    You could even use the same powertrain.
    <img src="http://thumbsnap.com/i/s7QyqFqT.jpg&quot; width="600">
    <img src="http://www.toylander.com/images/TL3_Army.jpg"width="600"&gt;
    <img src="http://d121tcdkpp02p4.cloudfront.net/clim/28823/toylander1.jpg&quot; width="500">

    1. Kamil_K Avatar

      Oh. My. Gawd.
      I need this!!! Err…my kids needs this.

    2. craigsu Avatar
      craigsu

      Reminds me of mdharrell's automotive fleet.

      1. OA5599 Avatar
        OA5599

        To me, not so much. It looks reliable, and even if something fails, replacement parts are readily available.

      2. Rover_1 Avatar
        Rover_1

        No no, these can't rust.
        But you can practi… I mean teach your kids to practice reversing a trailer.

        1. mdharrell Avatar

          If I owned them, I'm confident they'd find a way to rust.

          1. Rover_1 Avatar
            Rover_1

            The wheels, themselves, and the axles are steel.
            Your confidence may not be misplaced…

  5. VolvoNut Avatar

    note proper use of zipties

  6. Maymar Avatar
    Maymar

    Some years ago, I worked in a Home Depot. I remember wandering through the power tools section, and realizing at least one of the drills available had more torque than my old Ford Escort.

  7. Tiller188 Avatar
    Tiller188

    Pretty advanced little buggy — it even has steer-by-wire and throttle-by-wire systems. (And I love the Frisbee for a steering wheel.)

    1. mdharrell Avatar

      The Frisbee struck me as a bit silly until I realized it would be deformable in the event of impact. Once again, utterly brilliant.

  8. Rust-MyEnemy Avatar

    I call shenanigans. No way did this kid's dad build this.
    What we have here is a long lost Colin Chapman prototype.

  9. Felis_Concolor Avatar
    Felis_Concolor

    In the vernacular of the youth: needs moar trash bin! Lightning Cars UK
    For my own preferred enhancements, full differential drive using one of Samagaga's spiffy center sections would be ideal.

  10. Van_Sarockin Avatar
    Van_Sarockin

    That's the most ghetto thing I've seen in a while. And it has my wholehearted endorsement!

  11. Synchromesh Avatar
    Synchromesh

    In theory this even has forward/reverse if one can think of a clever way to push the drill direction button from driver's seat. Very full of awesome this thing is!

  12. tiberiusẅisë Avatar

    Bonus points for piano music instead of dubstep.

  13. MrGoodBytes Avatar
    MrGoodBytes

    this is awesome in a way of introducing children to hacking their own things.
    well if that worked, why aren't we using a drill on BOTH wheels (and then they will discover power drill motors are not anywhere close to neutrally timed).
    my suggestion for things like this, ford radiator fan motors. they take 24V like a champ, pretty close to neutrally timed (hit me up if you want to know how to retime them), and are bi-directional (why ford made them bi-directional is completely beyond me)

    1. Vairship Avatar
      Vairship

      They're bi-directional so that they can turn in the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere of course!