October 31, 2007

New Ice-cycle Gives Cycling Thrills on Lakes in Winter (Apr, 1934)

Filed under: Bicycles, Just Weird, Sports — @ 12:59 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Apr, 1934

Well, they got one thing right. It certainly does look thrilling.

New Ice-cycle Gives Cycling Thrills on Lakes in Winter

THE bicycle craze has taken its hold on devotees of winter sports, resulting in the development of the ice-cycle, which speeds over the frozen surfaces of ponds or rivers. The new ice vehicle is built from an ordinary bicycle. The front wheel is removed entirely, and the forks extended so that they almost touch the ice with the bicycle standing upright. A steel skate runner is attached to the extended front fork.

Two skate runners are similarly attached alongside the rear wheel. The cycle is pedalled as usual, the rubber tire gripping the ice. The skate runners prevent skidding, and balance can be maintained just as easily as on an ordinary bicycle.

October 26, 2007

“I Can Whip Any Mechanical Robot” by Jack Dempsey (Apr, 1934)

Filed under: Robots, Sports — @ 7:14 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Apr, 1934

“I Can Whip Any Mechanical Robot” by Jack Dempsey

Picturesque former champion of world tells mechanical side of boxing. Challenges any robot.

I CAN whip any mechanical robot that ever has or ever will be made. Maybe that sounds a bit egotistical, maybe you will say it’s just the voice of a “has-been,” but I assure you that neither is true.

I was talking over old times with my friend Captain W. H. Fawcett and during the course of conversation he remarked that undoubtedly mechanical ingenuity has done much to improve the work of many boxers.

“That’s true,” I answered, “but nothing mechanical will ever be able to whip an honest to goodness boxer. Even right now, despite the fact that I am definitely through with the ring as a fighter, I wouldn’t be afraid of any robot or mechanical man., I could tear it to pieces, bolt by bolt and scatter its brain wheels and cogs all over the canvas.”

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October 24, 2007

Lung Power Test Determines Grid Star’s Food Quotas (Apr, 1934)

Filed under: Sports — @ 7:17 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Apr, 1934

Lung Power Test Determines Grid Star’s Food Quotas

THE modern football player, working on a full quota of energy, may soon know just what he may or may not eat at the training table. And perhaps he may thereby judge whether he desires to take his laurels on the field or in the rooting stand.

Dr. Francis Baldwin of the University of Southern California has inaugurated a method whereby he attaches an apparatus to the nose and mouth of a football player and has him run a specified distance. Air thus exhaled by the athlete goes into a special bag and after the run this is rushed to a laboratory for examination.

It is claimed that this examination will reveal whether the food being served at the training table is proper for a strapping football player. It is the belief of the discoverer that through proper feeding it will be possible to develop football teams even far superior to those of today.

October 1, 2007

FRENCH BICYCLE HAS SMALL FRONT WHEEL (Feb, 1933)

Filed under: Bicycles, Sports — @ 7:37 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Feb, 1933

FRENCH BICYCLE HAS SMALL FRONT WHEEL

Returning to the design of an old-fashioned bicycle, a French inventor is producing one with a small wheel in front and a large one behind. The small wheel steers, while the large one drives. Handlebars are at the rear of the cyclist. The inventor claims his machine embodies scientific principles of balance and structural design. Its rider sits in a comfortable erect position, instead of crouching, so obstructions are unlikely to throw him.

September 28, 2007

Body Sway Drives Eccentric Bicycle 15 Miles Per Hour (Nov, 1934)

Filed under: Bicycles, Sports — @ 12:32 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1934

Body Sway Drives Eccentric Bicycle 15 Miles Per Hour

CALLED the simplest self-propelled vehicle in the world, a radically new type of bicycle, entirely without pedals, is driven by body motion alone.

The rear wheel of this “x-ercycle,” as it is called, is eccentric; the rider stands on a springy footboard and swings his body in rhythm with the up and down movement of the frame to produce forward motion.

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September 5, 2007

AIDED BY BALLOON, MAN LEAPS HUNDRED YARDS (Dec, 1930)

Filed under: Sports — @ 7:29 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Dec, 1930

AIDED BY BALLOON, MAN LEAPS HUNDRED YARDS

What is the world’s record for the running broad jump? Maybe Jack Cope, balloonist and parachute expert, holds it, because he can jump a hundred yards or more at a time. Not unassisted, of course; but with his partially rilled balloon, such feats are easy for him.

Cope inflates his balloon until it is within a few ounces of being able to lift him. Then it is released and as it slides along before the wind, he leaps into the air and is borne forward several hundred feet at a time. The sport is not dangerous if the field is level and free of obstructions.

August 31, 2007

Florball (Dec, 1950)

Filed under: Sports — @ 1:42 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Dec, 1950

Apparently there are still people who play florball. Well at least they did in Finland Norway, in 1999.

Florball
Played on a portable court, Florball is a fast, new racquet game. It embraces principles of hockey, tennis, golf and handball. Goals are scored by driving a sponge-rubber ball against eight- inch- high boards at either end of the court and three goals in succession are needed for one point. The ball has to be kept on the floor when serving and close to it at all other times.

August 27, 2007

Aquatic Freaks Rout Summer Heat (Oct, 1933)

Filed under: Sports — @ 1:18 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Oct, 1933

Aquatic Freaks Rout Summer Heat

Trick Outboards in Filmland

MOVIE folk are great at cooking up the unusual and extracting the last bit of publicity value from their stunts. And one of the latest of these gags is one which intrigues the mechanically-minded man who is addicted to taking his swimming seriously. Warren Williams, famous Warner Brothers film star, appeared at a California beach recently with the queer craft shown in the photo to the right.

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August 26, 2007

Firemen Invent New Hose Game (Nov, 1937)

Filed under: Sports — @ 6:52 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1937

Firemen Invent New Hose Game

Streams of water from fire hoses, and a ball sliding freely along an overhead wire, recently provided the implements for a novel game played by firemen at Chicago, Ill. Officially, the object of the game was to push the ball over the opponents’ goal line, although to spectators it appeared as if it was primarily to drench the opponents. The players appropriately named their strenuous sport “fireball.”

August 22, 2007

Boxers Wear Fireworks in Novel Bout (Nov, 1937)

Filed under: Just Weird, Sports — @ 7:59 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1937

Boxers Wear Fireworks in Novel Bout

Outlined in flame, two asbestos-clad boxers staged a spectacular bout during a recent pyrotechnic display in London, England. Blazing fireworks, attached to the suits of the two performers on jointed frames to permit them freedom of movement, glowed as they sparred in the dark.

August 21, 2007

EVERY MOVE IN BALL GAME IS SHOWN ON SCREEN (Dec, 1924)

Filed under: Sports — @ 7:47 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Dec, 1924
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EVERY MOVE IN BALL GAME IS SHOWN ON SCREEN

Play by play, practically every movement made in a baseball game at a distant park is reproduced with realistic accuracy on a thirty-foot screen for the enjoyment of theater patrons with the aid of an ingenious electrical apparatus invented by an eastern man. It is virtually a motion-picture machine without film or projector, the figures being made to move across the screen by a succession of quickly flashing lights which are wired to the telegraph instruments.

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August 11, 2007

Camera Inside a Football Films View from Air (Dec, 1938)

Filed under: Photography, Sports — @ 12:16 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Dec, 1938

Camera Inside a Football Films View from Air
Wonder what the stadium looks like to the football sailing through the air? You’ll soon know. For a novel sequence in a football picture filmed in the Rose Bowl by RKO-Radio Pictures, a sixteen-millimeter movie camera was fitted inside a football made of balsa wood. The lens looked out from a window in the end of the imitation ball. As the player forward-passed the football, a release spring started the camera grinding, and a panoramic view of the field and the players was recorded until the ball came to rest in the receiver’s arms.

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