Mimic The Movements Of Cheetahs With Pardo

Written by Christopher DeMorro
Published on November 19th, 2009
3 Comments
Posted in Offbeat

As the fastest land animal on Earth, the cheetah is a beast often referred to in metaphors, and studied for its movements. Humans, as you may have noticed, have something of an obsession with speed. Many of us won’t give up that obsession, no matter how much climate change may endanger our future. Did I mention humans are stubborn as well?

Thus the quest for a fossil fuel free future brings about a lot of interesting, outlandish, and outright weird ideas. This one is one of the weirdest, and yet it may actually have a future of sorts. Its a tricycle designed to mimic the movement of a cheetah… and, apparently, it works.

Called the Pardo, which is spanish for Cheetah, it was designed by Pablo Lopez for Innovar. Innovar is a national contest in Argentina promoting innovative thoughts and ideas, and the Pardo certainly fits those qualifications. Lopez based his design on the Cheetah, for “transmitting and creating sensations.”

The Pardo uses two pedals, which the user pushes down on, to propel the unit forward. Obviously this doesn’t represent any sort of replacement for cars… but Pablo envisions it as a sort of futuristic extreme sport. I can dig that. It even folds up for easy transport. A working model has even been made and tested, though no word on if it can achieve the cheetah’s purported top speed of 60-70 mph (depending on who you ask).

Source: Treehugger

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3 Responses to “Mimic The Movements Of Cheetahs With Pardo”

  1. Gary L. Sooter Says:
    November 19th, 2009 at 9:29 pm

    Looks cool, but how does it work and how does it steer? How about a video?

  2. Alex Price Says:
    November 22nd, 2009 at 8:07 am

    Gary said it. “How does it work?”

  3. Will Scharen Says:
    November 25th, 2009 at 9:01 am

    The following article at treehugger has a diagram showing how you ride it (sort of). I’d like a video as well.

    http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/move-like-a-cheetah-with-this-incredible-human-powered-vehicle-photos.php

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