How does the children vehicle where you continously turn left and right to gain speed work? would that work for adult vehicles?
In: 5
Imagine you’re looking down at the floor, and there’s a wheel on it aiming up and to the right.
If you try to push that wheel to the right (while keeping its heading still) it will instead roll the way it’s facing – up and to the right.
This is because of its friction against the ground, which keeps it from just sliding off to the right. Instead your force is partly deflected into moving the wheel up as well as to the right so that it can roll along its axis.
Anyway this is basically how in-line skates work, right? You aim your foot ahead, but also a bit off to the side, and push your leg outward. The result is that your foot glides not just outward but also forward.
These scooter things use the same principle, by having the front two wheels on a weird axis that’s set *behind* the steering column. When you turn the column, the wheels are dragged around in an arc. This arc works just like a stroke of your foot while skating, as it pulls the wheels in towards the centerline and some of that energy is converted into forwards motion.
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