Nicolas Coleman

Perpetual Motion Car

Not quite perpetual: a car that runs on energy stored in a spinning wheel, built for Stanford’s ME 102.

Context
Stanford ME 102, team final project
Discipline
Mechanism design, Fabrication
The finished car, with laser-cut wooden wheels and a large inertial wheel on a clear acrylic base with white 3D-printed parts.

For our ME 102 final project, we designed a car that could move using only its own stored energy. It’s built from wood, acrylic and PLA, using laser cutting and 3D printing.

I decided on white and acrylic for the body. It may not have gone very far, but I’d still take it over a Porsche.

How it works

01

Falling water

Our first concept used falling water to drive a wheel, but the system didn’t hold enough energy.

02

An inertial wheel

The final design uses an inertial wheel and a simple release mechanism. Spinning up the rear axle with a pull string stores energy, and the car then turns it into motion.

More photos

  • The first concept, a wooden frame with cardboard wheels and a plastic cup mounted high at the back.
    The first concept, driven by falling water
  • A white 3D-printed mechanism with a spoked wheel on a bracket and a linkage below it.
    A 3D-printed mechanism in white PLA