Silly electrical vehicle built from a Home Depot lawn cart using a wheel chair motor and A123 cells.
Doof Cart was my first proper electric vehicle if we don’t count strapping a lawn chair to an FRC drive train and riding it around. Named after the Doof Wagon from the movie, Mad Max: Fury Road, brought to you by George Miller, the director of other such classics as Happy Feet and Happy Feet 2: Every Step Counts, Doof Cart was made jointly with my friends Fred, Andrew, and Michael at MITERS. Originally intended to take part in the Power Wheels Racing Series at the New York City Maker Faire, the Cart made it to NYC, but did not compete. This was my first project as an impressionable freshman at MIT and probably the reason why I’m now a Mechanical Engineer instead of some “steve” working at Google.
There was an attempt to convert Doof Cart to be power-assisted steering for my 6.131 project, but the backlash in the chain drive to the steering linkage made this difficult so it was ultimately scrapped. Doof Cart now spends most of its days hauling really heavy cruft around MIT campus.
