Human-Powered

French champion of pedal power, Stéphane Rousson, is developing a twin-prop waterbike designed to beat a 30-year-old world record for the fastest human-powered watercraft. The first prototype has been built and tested on the water.

Pino is a simple kitchen appliance designed to enable electricity-free, human-powered kitchen tasks, such as whisking, beating, mixing and grinding.

Pedal-powered paddle boat (pedalo) designs tends to swing between cutesy kitsch and blandly pragmatic, which is why Beau Lake's Runabout – a paddle boat that actually looks like a boat – is the most ironically out-there thing to happen to these little leisure craft to date.

In an effort to apply energy-harvesting methods to power wearable devices, researchers have also created a new authentication method based on a person’s movements that may one day replace conventional security methods such as passwords or fingerprints.

HandEnergy is a new hybrid generator created to offer on-demand power from the palm of just one hand. It is designed to produce electricity at wall socket speeds through gentle wrist rotations.

A new human-powered system prototype dubbed Vertical Walking has been developed that requires just ten percent of the effort needed to climb stairs, but can easily move a person up vast numbers of floors within a building.

Intended to fill a niche between bicycle and car, velomobiles are still quite a rare sight in most of the world … perhaps because they're just too weird. Swedish design engineer Mikael Kjellman has set out to change that, with his decidedly car-like PodRide.

This student designed dishwasher should be much cheaper to buy or run than the typical model. There's a reason for that – it's powered by hand. The Circo manual dishwasher is designed for use where space is limited, or by people who cannot afford an electric dishwasher.

The GinzVelo velomobile takes the form of a recumbent tricycle surrounded by a sleek fiberglass/foam core body shell. The shell aids in aerodynamics, shields the rider from the elements, and could even offer a degree of crash protection.

The four-wheeled Velove Armadillo supports a big, ol' cargo box or semi-trailer on the rear, making the typical two-wheel grocery getter look downright undersized. The pedaled quad is so cargo hungry, Velove believes it can replace the cargo van when transporting smaller loads over short distances.

If you happen to be at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, you may see a rather unusual vehicle on the road. Although it was originally meant to be the first in a line of commercially-produced velomobiles, it ended up being the only one of its kind ... and now, you can buy it.

Human-powered velomobiles can't go as fast as automobiles, meaning that they often have to be ridden along the edge of the road. The electric-assist Raht Racer, however, amplifies the rider's pedaling power, reportedly allowing them to move as fast as the cars around them.