Architecture
Vermont students build an environment friendly mobile home
“I got tired of climbing a ladder six and a half million times a day,” said Idaho based designer Ethan Schlussler. Creating a clever solution, Schlussler constructed a bicycle-powered elevator to make the 30-feet ascent to his treehouse. Rigging the 20-speed bicycle to climb a vertical chain, Schlussler uses pedal power in an ultra-low gear to lift his body-weight. After some time in his woodland hideaway, the decent is the easiest part. The sweet combination of gear tension and gravity allow him to smoothly glide back down. “I did have to make a few modifications to the original design to get the gear ratio low enough for it to work, but that is mostly because I did not really calculate anything in the design process; I just designed it in my head and built it in a way I thought it would work,” said Schlussler. ...
