Did you ever stick baseball cards into your spokes as a kid? I don’t really remember doing it. I think the times of baseball cards in spokes might have ended by the 80’s once all our parents regretted losing their DiMaggio rookie card in the name of making a cool noise while they rode their bike. Baseball cards are so mid-century anyway, but it’s hard to rep one’s hobby on one’s bike when you’re a gamer. Sticking CDs in your spokes just ends up with visits to the doctor’s and questions like “Are you mentally challenged?”
Enter SpokePOV who has come up with a way to bring bike wheels and gaming together. SpokePOV creates a customizable LED display on your bike wheels using 60 LED lights, 30 on each wheel. As the biker bikes the wheels spin (Everyone still with me?), as the wheels spin the lights pass a magnet mounted on the frame of the bike, which then tells the kit what speed the wheels are going at ensuring that the display is always looking good. Since the image above doesn’t really show it, it might help to explain that both the ghost and the Pac-Man are moving while the wheels spin.
Is this truly game related? Not really, but it’s the weekend and the guys behind the SpokePOV had the foresight to make their examples two of gaming’s most beloved adversaries, so we have to give them some credit there. Plus, only someone with enough nerd-balls as a gamer would go out in public with something like this and it seems the technology’s following is pretty gamer centered as Mario and Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em demonstrate.
[Via TVGB]
Published: Apr 11, 2009 09:00 am