The Grasshopper: It Folds Up, It Recharges, It's Designed in SolidWorks *Update!*

Ya know the speeder bikes in Stars Wars you always dreamed of riding on? Well, this bike is the next best thing for the moment. Storm Trooper, neat sound effects and wooded terrain sold separately.

The Grasshopper, designed by David Gonçalves, is a collapsible, self-charging, energy-conserving joy-ride that can trasnform into a trolley or stationary bike. It won the Merit prize in the 2008 12th International Bicycle Design Competition and it just so happens that it was designed in SolidWorks.

Pedal Power
The bicycle uses a battery that is recharges through the braking system or when you’re in the mood for biking stationary in your cubicle. For urban transportation, this compact bike becomes a very efficient way to get around. It’s also just screaming accessorize me with saddlebags a stickers, ya think? Would you ride one to work?

*Update!*
I’ve heard from David regarding some of his designs:

…the Grasshoper was fully modeled in Solidworks. The Scarab was developed in Solidworks, for the mechanic movements to be correct, but then I did the final styling in Alias. The Phoenix was modeled completely in Alias. The renderings that are now available on the web were all made using Bunkspeed Hypershot, apart from some exceptions that were rendered either in Maxwell, Imagestudio or even Solidworks (in the case of some technical renders of the Grasshopper).

Thanks David!

David Gonçalves (coroflot, Behance)