The flight of human fantasy has no boundaries. Some inventors are particularly striking for the creative approach to creating their mechanical works.
One such creative inventor was Julius Makerli, a Czechoslovak engineer and automobile designer.
short biography
Julius was born on June 8, 1909 in the Czech Republic in the family of the owner of a brick factory. In 1935 he graduated from the Technical University of Brno. It is the oldest university in the city and one of the best in the Czech Republic. During his studies, the young inventor designed his first car: he built an open-top sports car with a 1000 cm³ JAP engine.
Julius's first job was in a senior position in the engine development department of the Škoda holding.
From 1948 he became an employee of Tatra and developed engines for trucks. In 1949, the department he headed built engines for the Tatra 607-2 and Tatra 607 Monopost racing cars. In the same year, he designed a device for engine cooling.
In the early fifties, Mackerley developed an 8-cylinder engine for the Tatra 603 executive car. Then he designed an 8-cylinder diesel loading device that was used on trucks.
Promotional video:
Rotoped machine wheel.
After successful partnerships with major manufacturing companies such as Škoda and Tatra, Mackerley began designing a car with "walking wheels" that could easily overcome rough terrain.
In 1964, senior engineer Julius Makerli at the Czechoslovak Automobile Research Institute first made a half-meter model, and then in full size a unique "walking" Rotoped car. It could rotate around its own axis, crawl sideways, take side steps and traverse difficult terrain, including steep slopes.
Mackerly believed that the more wheels his creation, the higher the chances of overcoming a particularly difficult section of the path. Universal joints in the drivetrain and multiple powertrains were significant advantages of the Rotoped over its all-wheel drive siblings.
The length of the car was seven meters, its wheels when moving obeyed the will of gravity, and not the law of friction.
The wheels worked according to a seemingly simple scheme: the mechanism created for itself a "slide" from which it rolled. The "slide" was obtained due to pressure changes in the so-called "pillows".
The advantages of the lack of torque were obvious: the wheels did not dig into the sand and did not slip on the ice, and when they hit a bump, they simply stopped rotating until they hit the ground again. The diameter of each wheel is 55 cm, the height of the "pillows" fixed on them is 12 cm. The wheels could rotate 180 degrees. The maximum speed that the Rotoped could gain was 19 km / h.
The Trabant engine in the Roots vans was fitted to the Rotoped. The turbo was borrowed from the old diesel engine. The wheel structure was designed in such a way that it not only supplied air to the cushions, but also served as storage for it.
The air in the chassis structure circulated in a closed system: the deflated "cushions" released compressed air, which flowed back through the suspension tubes to the fan and everything started all over again.
Car tests Rotoped.
Julius Mackerly dreamed of using his vehicle on the moon. There would be many opportunities for the "walking machine" to express themselves. But all the work on the amazing project was soon completed and the experimental model remained in a single copy.