Friday, August 21, 2009

Musical Highways

You may have seen the Honda TV commercial showing a car driving over a grooved stretch of road. The vibrations induced by the grooves of the road produced a passable rendition of the William Tell Overture.



Soon after the commercial was shot, local residents began complaining about the noise and traffic, and the city council decided to pave over the grooves. However, the small town was reluctant to lose a potential tourist attraction, and has since created a new "musical highway" on a more remote stretch of road.

Musical highways, or melody roads, are nothing new in other parts of the world. There are at least three in Japan, as well as others in South Korea and Denmark

Friday, August 07, 2009

Go Fly a Flyke


British IT teacher John Carverhas just embarks on an 800 mile journey from Land's End, Cornwall, to John o' Groats, Scotland - at the far tip of the United Kingdom.

What makes this trip unusual is that Carver will be traveling by Flyke... a propeller-driven tricycle suspended from a paraglider canopy. The Flyke can travel at over 20 miles per hour, buts need to land for refueling every two hours. Carver will pause at campgrounds along the way, and plans to take three to four week to complete his journey.

If successful, he will set a record for the longest journey by Trike. He also hopes to raise more that £10,000 ($16,750) for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation through sponsorships and donations.