The Jumping and Flying Bubble Car

by B.J. on 12/01/2007 01:15:00 PM 0 comments Print this post

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"If the man can conceive it, then the man can achieve it."

Sitting in afteroon LA traffic for about 2 hours on a 15-mile commute seeing lots of one-person cars including myself, I always think about this quote. I read it on some fool's facebook quotes, and I guess I kinda believe it.

As with any societal meme, I like to play with the idea in my head. I like to stretch the meme's limits and see where it rings true and doesn't ring true.

I have this idea to stretch that quote's limitations.

Inspired by a host of generation Y popular movies and memes in the Jetsons, Bladerunner, Rocketeer the sphere ball event in American Gladiators, Flubber, Steve Urkel's bubble car, this one random bank commercial with people traveling with some type of pogo stick springs as shoes, and bumper cars and agitated into action by LA traffic and pollution, I hearby announce that I have officially conceived the idea of...

the magnetically powered flying, jumping, running bubble-shaped cars.

Before something gets used widely, it has to be proven to be 1) safe and dependable, and most importantly, 2) cost-beneficial.

I am sure people have thought that we would've been traveling like the Jetsons or the Cyborgs in Bladerunner by now, but what many of them don't take into account is that assuming that type of technology ever becomes affordable, there would probably be a high number of in-air collisions and accidents.

With flying-only cars of the Jetsons all over the place even in its initial phases of inaffordability, there would still be too much variation in the ways people would be traveling. Wasn't it that way with the car in the early 20th century?

There wouldn't be any gravity to keep them on a singular planar surface. I'd imagine every part of airspace being used to capacity. Such hyper variation is a homemade recipe for trouble.

Safety in my apparatus relies heavily on a truly bubblish design.

Strong enough to keep you in and everything in place like the sphere balls in American gladiator, but a soft enough exterior so it doesn't harm anyone else. Nothing protruding or squared so you don't accidentally stab anyone.

My design would be made out of bumper car rubber with highly flexible yet durable material for the windows like a rubber- plastic-magnetic forcefield synthesis.

In regards to cost-beneficiality in general daily travel, people want the flexibility and speed to be anywhere at any time. This is why there's still a reluctance for people to invest in mass transit...there's no flexibility, you have to walk to a mass transit station, and any of its speed is negated by the fact that it's relatively inconvenient. At the same time however, people want to be able to haul a lot of their shit with them. They want to carry cases full of court briefings and bathroom reading material.

People want to be light and heavy at the same time.

Per my apparatus' cost-beneficiality, that's why the apparatus takes the shape of a classic compact bubble car...a synthesis of a car's storage space to keep your case briefings and bathroom reading magazines, with such flexibility and weightlessness yet durability in material that you could bring your apparatus in your cubicle.

Speed would also be adequately addressed. Being magnetically powered, the flying would be easy to accomplish, and it wouldn't even seem like flying because you're being magnetically attracted to a point. This would account for the speed, thus the reduced travel time, and thus the reason you buy this thing in the first place (with safety concerns being long since addressed).

However, if you feel like being active, you would also have the options of jumping and running, and then activating the magnets whenever you feel like it.

This wide range of activities automatically gives you not only more speed, but more options in your travel.

Think of it as a bunch of rounded gigantic martial arts helmets flying around with magnetic resistance and attraction power to take you to a destination in nanoseconds.

I wonder what new age religion would condemn it, though.

If there were one caveat in terms of cost, we'd probably have to install a city-wide magnetic repelling/attracting system to magnetically repel our apparati off the sidewalks and ground level roads.

The system would be in place to minimize pedestrian incidents.

However, widespread use would eventually pay for everything. The cost to society production would be beneficial. Not as much need for parking lots, car condominiums, and

So with the required 50% of the quote's requirements satisfied, now all someone has to do is achieve it.

P.S. Note to achiever: Let me patent the achievement phase, so that my monetary obligations will not only be healed but will also allow me to indulge in excessive phases of luxuria, gula, avarita, acedia, ira, invidia, and superbia.

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