Concept note · the lab vocabulary
Multi-medium
One vehicle form for land, water and air, instead of a different machine for each.
What it is
A vehicle that keeps one shape and one propulsion system across every medium it travels through. Cars, boats and aircraft became three different shapes because each was built around its own propulsion — wheels, hulls and props, wings and rotors. A multi-medium form starts from the other end: pick a shape that works the same in every direction, and put all the thrust in one place that can be aimed.
In the lab
- Ghost Sphere →
- A clear six-foot sphere with one ring: six cyclorotors inside it fly the craft, blow it across water, and drive the ring as its tyre on the road — one form, three media, steered by leaning.
Our position
The form should not change between media; only where the thrust points should. A sphere is the same from every side, and one ring round its middle can carry all of it: rotors that push down to fly, push back to cross water, and shift to drive the ring itself as a tyre on the road. Nothing juts out, nothing folds away, and the rider steers the same way — by leaning — in every mode.
Honest limitations
This is a concept specification, not a built vehicle. The geometry, the ring, the rotors and the modes are specified; the power and weight budget for a craft of this size flying on six small cyclorotors is the open question, and the mode change — sliding the ring from flat to upright while the rotors hold the craft in balance — has yet to be proven in hardware.
The experiments are the proof
Every claim in this note is made concrete somewhere in the lab — the idea exists because the machines needed it.
The map of the lab →