Rabbit Racer

To better understand this concept, do the following: Stand a hand on the desktop on its four fingertips. Move the two middle fingers forward. Shift the hand’s weight to those fingers and then slide the outer fingers forward, past and ahead of the inner fingers. Shift the weight to the outer fingers and slide the inner fingers forward. Repeat. The finger exercise is similar to a racing rabbit’s paw movement and is the heart of this vehicle propulsion idea.

Replace the middle fingers with a pair of wheels on a short axle and the outer fingers with wheels on a long axle. The axles can slide in tracks – think linear motor - in a central, horizontal rail so that the wheel-pairs can move towards and past each other and change places (the wide wheel-pair’s axle is above and outside the other’s axle). See the schematic link for better comprehension.

In forward motion the wheels are ratcheted to only roll forward, so the front pair of wheels is motionless while the vehicle-bearing rail is pulling itself forward and the rear wheels roll forward twice as fast. When the wheel-pairs have changed places, the linear motor pulls the axles back towards the center, as the vehicle continues its forward progress.

Thus the wheels aren’t pulling by turning but by standing still on the surface in phases (when not coasting). I know that by having the wheels pass each other, I complicate the axle construction and make the vehicle instable at the instant when all four wheels are in line, but I couldn’t resist it.